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You are here: Home / Science & Technology / What Are They Thinking

What Are They Thinking

by John Cole|  December 5, 20101:56 pm| 266 Comments

This post is in: Science & Technology, Clown Shoes

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This just makes me laugh:

Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, has circulated across the internet an encrypted “poison pill” cache of uncensored documents suspected to include files on BP and Guantanamo Bay.

One of the files identified this weekend by The Sunday Times — called the “insurance” file — has been downloaded from the WikiLeaks website by tens of thousands of supporters, from America to Australia.

Assange warns that any government that tries to curtail his activities risks triggering a new deluge of state and commercial secrets.

The military papers on Guantanamo Bay, yet to be published, have been supplied by Bradley Manning, Assange’s primary source until his arrest in May. Other documents that Assange is confirmed to possess include an aerial video of a U.S. airstrike in Afghanistan that killed civilians, BP files and Bank of America documents.

One of the key files available for download — named insurance.aes256 — appears to be encrypted with a 256-digit key. Experts said last week it was virtually unbreakable.

I honestly don’t know what Joe Lieberman and the rest of the wannabe bully boy censors think they are accomplishing. The documents are going to get out there. You may make it difficult to centralize things, but all it takes is one person with email to make sure the documents keep moving. And there are a lot of folks out there willing to engage in a little civil disobediance to make sure these files see the light of day.

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Reader Interactions

266Comments

  1. 1.

    Villago Delenda Est

    December 5, 2010 at 1:59 pm

    Lieberman is a sanctimonious fascist thug.

    All you need to know about the asshole.

    “The more you tighten your grip, the more starsystems slip through your fingers”

  2. 2.

    Nathan

    December 5, 2010 at 2:01 pm

    Not at all coincidentally, the people who think “cutting the snake’s head off” will work in this case think it’ll work when it comes to terrorism, too. All they need to do, they believe, is fine Assange/Bin Laden/Saddam/Hitler in his bunker, hit him with a righteous spray of hot lead, and the problem is solved.

    For a bunch of people who have their heads so far up the asses of multinational corporations with a million tentacles, they still see the world as a bunch of mom & pop stores. Thus, kill mom or pop, kill the store.

  3. 3.

    The Grand Panjandrum

    December 5, 2010 at 2:10 pm

    As long as they keep getting the #3 guy in AQ and they get weenies like Jeff Bezos to knuckle under to the bullies like Lieberman we are winning the GWOT! I feel safer already. Now if I can just find a TSA worker to fondle grope my junk I’ll have had a complete day of safetiness, or something like that. Yay! I haz safT.

  4. 4.

    matoko_chan

    December 5, 2010 at 2:11 pm

    Please Cole can this thread be about how Assanges system-killer is actually WAI so far?
    It is running RIGHT NAOW and as far as i can see its working.
    we are right in the middle of a field test of a systems-killer right out of a scifi novel.
    it looks to me like its WAI so far.
    Assange laid out exactly what he wants to do, the feds have been spectacularily unable to stop him, and the systemskiller is having the first stage effects Assange theorized in his manifesto.

    Other documents that Assange is confirmed to possess include an aerial video of a U.S. airstrike in Afghanistan that killed civilians,

    tole ja so tole ja so
    Garani.

  5. 5.

    ruemara

    December 5, 2010 at 2:12 pm

    Heh. I have nothing but admiration for it, even though I know in my heart that people won’t pay attention.

  6. 6.

    lol

    December 5, 2010 at 2:16 pm

    @Nathan:

    Lefties are the same way with corporations: if we just made an example of a few executives, we’d end corporate corruption. If we nationalized a few banks to show them who’s boss, Wall Street would never be bad again.

  7. 7.

    matoko_chan

    December 5, 2010 at 2:17 pm

    @ruemara: how about if it works, if the system-killer works, and the US closed information system either freezes up or collapses?
    will people pay attention then?
    will we know?
    what will happen?
    i know what Assange thinks will happen if it works– i read his mission statement.
    What do you guys think?

  8. 8.

    matt

    December 5, 2010 at 2:20 pm

    It’s only insurance so long as nobody gets the key. Also, does anybody believe these documents won’t be leaked eventually anyway?

  9. 9.

    matt

    December 5, 2010 at 2:24 pm

    One of the files identified this weekend by The Sunday Times — called the “insurance” file — has been downloaded from the WikiLeaks website by tens of thousands of supporters, from America to Australia.

    How old media: claiming the Times identified something that has already been seen by tens of thousands. Hell, people have been talking about it here for weeks.

  10. 10.

    lol

    December 5, 2010 at 2:25 pm

    My conflicting thoughts on the whole affair:

    Manning should go to prison for life and needs to be made an example of. Leaking classified information is bad whether you’re a Bush administration official trying to get back at Joe Wilson or a military grunt who wants to see Hillary shit her pants.

    I think Assange is pretty much an anarchist who’s publishing this stuff not out of some higher purpose to expose corruption but simply because he can. I think he’s pretty reckless and irresponsible. That said, he’s still a journalist, he has a right to publish and he shouldn’t be arrested/killed/whatever for doing the same thing the New York Times did with the Pentagon Papers.

    Lieberman has proved once again that’s he’s a douchebag of the highest order. Amazon (and Paypal and others) should have known better than to cave simply because one Senator called them on the phone.

    The federal government’s reaction to blocking Wikileaks internally is completely understandable and keeping with current policy. Classified docs are still classified docs and having them be present on devices not cleared to hold them makes things difficult.

    Assange’s future leaks will probably be a lot more enjoyable when it’s not the US government in the crosshairs. The Bank of America leak couldn’t happen to a better financial institution.

  11. 11.

    matoko_chan

    December 5, 2010 at 2:26 pm

    @matt:

    Hell, people have been talking about it here for weeks.

    well i have :)
    in between the old hag patrol trying to shut me up.

  12. 12.

    matoko_chan

    December 5, 2010 at 2:28 pm

    @lol: Assange is not some garden variety anarchist.
    you should read his stuff.
    He is the Crown Prince of Hacktivism.
    it is a New Paradigm.

  13. 13.

    Michael

    December 5, 2010 at 2:28 pm

    Bitch McConnell is prattling on today about how Assange is a “high tech terrorist”.

    Now that the Goober party perceives itself as being in charge again, we’re back to the language of “yore with us or with them goldurn islamofascist terr’ists”.

  14. 14.

    JasonF

    December 5, 2010 at 2:28 pm

    @lol:

    That said, he’s still a journalist

    The fact that he’s got an “insurance file” says to me he’s not a journalist; he’s a common thug.

  15. 15.

    matoko_chan

    December 5, 2010 at 2:29 pm

    @Michael: but Assange is a cyber-insurgent.
    and the cyber-insurgents are kicking our ass just like the islamic insurgents and the viet cong insurgents did.

  16. 16.

    matoko_chan

    December 5, 2010 at 2:31 pm

    @JasonF: no he is a cyber-insurgent. And the US cannot beat him on his turf.

    “To radically shift regime behavior we must think clearly and boldly for if we have learned anything, it is that regimes do not want to be changed. We must think beyond those who have gone before us, and discover technological changes that embolden us with ways to act in which our forebears could not. Firstly we must understand what aspect of government or neocorporatist behavior we wish to change or remove. Secondly we must develop a way of thinking about this behavior that is strong enough carry us through the mire of politically distorted language, and into a position of clarity. Finally must use these insights to inspire within us and others a course of ennobling, and effective action.”
    Julian Assange, “State and Terrorist Conspiracies”

  17. 17.

    Roger Moore

    December 5, 2010 at 2:33 pm

    It’s obvious what Lieberman et. al. are thinking. They’re thinking “We’ve got to stop this guy!” Their problem is that they’re suffering from a serious case of the Dunning-Kruger effect. They’re so far behind the technological curve that they don’t realize how far behind the curve they are.

  18. 18.

    ruemara

    December 5, 2010 at 2:34 pm

    @matoko_chan:

    My dear, when you post, all I think is “Four Loko abuse is a bad thing and so is too much Tenchi Muyo”. The rest is less relevant.

  19. 19.

    sparky

    December 5, 2010 at 2:36 pm

    @lol: #6

    Lefties are the same way with corporations: if we just made an example of a few executives, we’d end corporate corruption. If we nationalized a few banks to show them who’s boss, Wall Street would never be bad again.

    @lol: #10

    Manning should go to prison for life and needs to be made an example of.

    i don’t know about the rest of you but i am impressed by the ability to construct a strawman and then, within four comments, use it for your own arguments while setting yourself on fire.

    edit: throwaway line removed

  20. 20.

    matoko_chan

    December 5, 2010 at 2:36 pm

    And there are a lot of folks out there willing to engage in a little civil disobediance to make sure these files see the light of day.

    Assange just activated his fifth column.
    This is war.

  21. 21.

    jwb

    December 5, 2010 at 2:37 pm

    @ruemara: Well, all things considered, Matoko’s rantings on Wikileaks are mostly harmless and occasionally amusing. They certainly beat the evil she spouts on IQ and genetics.

  22. 22.

    Chuck Butcher

    December 5, 2010 at 2:37 pm

    There are a couple things, if you do civil disobedience (ie criminal) you need to expect to get punished because the government does have a natural and legal right to defend itself. That does not mean there isn’t some moral/ethical compulsion to disobey, it just means it ain’t free. It also means that if you want to do such a thing it is important to act in a manner that cannot be painted as the actions of a “sole crazy.”

    As for whether Wikileaks will succeed in some grand goal of breaking the secret state – well that’s one real tough thing to do, it for sure will push it to be more reactionary though it might also have the good effect of reducing the amount of secrets filed as simply unmanagable in the face of such an adversary.

  23. 23.

    Roger Moore

    December 5, 2010 at 2:41 pm

    @JasonF:

    The fact that he’s got an “insurance file” says to me he’s not a journalist; he’s a common thug.

    It’s not a sign he’s a thug. It’s a sign he’s worried about his personal safety and wants a back-up plan in case somebody decides he’s worth getting rid of. Whether that’s a reasonable fear or not is an open question, but this kind of “insurance file” is something that even legitimate journalists have done when they felt threatened.

  24. 24.

    Dennis SGMM

    December 5, 2010 at 2:41 pm

    @Roger Moore:

    Thank you for making me aware of the Dunning-Kruger effect. Although I’d seen it in action throughout my life I never knew, until your post, that it actually had a name and a formal definition. I am too soon old and too late smart.

  25. 25.

    jeff

    December 5, 2010 at 2:42 pm

    @lol:

    This is my take on the whole thing as well. I would add that Assange seems to have little clue about how things work…I mean, I think we already know in general terms the contents of his leaks, and while they are surely damaging, they are not surprising. As far as Bank of America…there’s no way he’s bringing them (a few banks) down, though some executives could be fired or jailed.

  26. 26.

    Norman Rogers

    December 5, 2010 at 2:42 pm

    appears to be encrypted with a 256-digit key. Experts said last week it was virtually unbreakable.

    This sort of naivete always amuses me. Unbreakable for whom?

  27. 27.

    Corner Stone

    December 5, 2010 at 2:43 pm

    @JasonF:

    The fact that he’s got an “insurance file” says to me he’s not a journalist; he’s a common thug.

    Hilarious. Yes, taking steps to further your continued breathing is the hallmark of a thug.

  28. 28.

    wenchacha

    December 5, 2010 at 2:43 pm

    I am still Team Assange if I have to make a choice, but it’s mostly a knee-jerk decision. I wish he had been doing this work during Dubya’s reign if error; maybe there would have been a little more negative publicity about the Bush and cronies. Maybe.

    Because I have just about zero technical “hand,” I wonder if torrent is another way to thwart attempts to stop leakers and Wikileaks. Maybe it isn’t even necessary.

    I definitely don’t want to encourage spreading secrets that might harm innocent people, but I hate that it could be used spuriously as an excuse to stop the release of information. If some banksters or corporate vampire squids take a few hits to the junk, that’s okay with me.

  29. 29.

    Woodrowfan

    December 5, 2010 at 2:48 pm

    It’s not just that he pissed off most of the Western governments (including the US) but that he’s threatening China, Russia and (especially) the Russian Mafia.

    Screwing with the CIA is one thing, screwing with the Russian mob is quite another…

  30. 30.

    Stillwater

    December 5, 2010 at 2:48 pm

    the old hag patrol

    Add that to the lexicon.

  31. 31.

    Corner Stone

    December 5, 2010 at 2:49 pm

    @Chuck Butcher:

    There are a couple things, if you do civil disobedience (ie criminal) you need to expect to get punished because the government does have a natural and legal right to defend itself. That does not mean there isn’t some moral/ethical compulsion to disobey, it just means it ain’t free.

    I disagree. I see no reason why stoically standing in place and letting the authorities arrest and charge you is a good thing. Or in any way beneficial to your cause.
    It’s essentially a professional death sentence in today’s authoritarian corporate society. After this gets hung on you, you are essentially an outlaw. Not many people have the courage or ability to do that these days.
    It doesn’t mean their actions are less legitimate, it just means the dynamic has changed.

  32. 32.

    Fang

    December 5, 2010 at 2:50 pm

    Actually I think its obvious Assange is counting on people like Lieberman and the like to do stupid things that don’t help. The more people take a brute force approach to what he does, the more sympathy he gets, the worse such people look, and the bigger the chance for those taking a heavy-handed approach to screw up. My guess is everyone is behaving pretty much as he expected as he seems dedicated to causing state/security actors to melt down through their own actions.

  33. 33.

    Chuck Butcher

    December 5, 2010 at 2:51 pm

    @Roger Moore:
    I second the thanks for the info that such had actually been named and studied.

  34. 34.

    roshan

    December 5, 2010 at 2:52 pm

    Btw, the Amazon thing with Lieberman was just Assange’s way of demonstrating the extent of gov’t censorship in the private sector. Assange isn’t a fool to think that Amazon will host Wikileaks w/o facing threats from the US gov’t.

  35. 35.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    December 5, 2010 at 2:55 pm

    I saw on GOS yesterday that Paypal shut down the link to make donations to WikiLeaks.

  36. 36.

    Chuck Butcher

    December 5, 2010 at 2:57 pm

    @Corner Stone: You disagree with what? If you play at being a Manning you’re going to get caught at some point, the same is true about most criminal forms of CD. It has always been this way, once getting drawn and quartered and you family’s possessions stripped would have been the best you got. If there was no cost chaos would be the outcome because people do measure the insult to them versus the cost.

  37. 37.

    Roger Moore

    December 5, 2010 at 2:58 pm

    @Norman Rogers:

    Unbreakable for whom?

    It is unbreakable by any known crypto-breaking system. There are always rumors that NSA knows some secret backdoor or has super-secret crypto-breaking hardware, but there’s no reason beyond paranoia to believe it.

  38. 38.

    Seebach

    December 5, 2010 at 2:59 pm

    Looks like Assange & co have all of the balls and smarts the Democrats lack.

  39. 39.

    roshan

    December 5, 2010 at 3:00 pm

    Also, enjoy this excellent news rap video featuring a cameo by Assange just after the Iraq war logs came out. Watch out for the Bill O’Reilly and Rumsfeld impersonations, too good.

  40. 40.

    Omnes Omnibus

    December 5, 2010 at 3:03 pm

    @Seebach: the Democrats have to be concerned about the downside of any actions; Assange does not.

  41. 41.

    Roger Moore

    December 5, 2010 at 3:09 pm

    @Corner Stone:

    I see no reason why stoically standing in place and letting the authorities arrest and charge you is a good thing. Or in any way beneficial to your cause.

    It can be helpful as part of a media strategy. Being arrested can highlight the difference between the government’s stated principles and its actions. It’s also as a way of proving that you’re an idealist sticking up for your principles rather than an anarchist or vandal trying to throw a monkey wrench in the works for the fun of it.

  42. 42.

    Seebach

    December 5, 2010 at 3:11 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: So much bull. They care about the downside to any liberal action, and how it might affect the cocktail parties at the Village. But conservative action? The Patriot Act, the Iraq War, tax cuts… then it’s just time to go along with the Republicans. How many people died because of the “downside” to that “action”?

  43. 43.

    Michael

    December 5, 2010 at 3:11 pm

    @roshan:

    Btw, the Amazon thing with Lieberman was just Assange’s way of demonstrating the extent of gov’t censorship in the private sector. Assange isn’t a fool to think that Amazon will host Wikileaks w/o facing threats from the US gov’t.

    Assange is demonstrating in a powerful way how so much of what I was conditioned from my youth to believe about my nation and its culture is complete and total bullshit.

    We dont have a free exchange of information and people are not free to dissent from official policy without consequences.

    In the past, I used to proudly hang the flag from my home – no longer.

    I won’t give discounts to serving military folks any longer.

    I cant say as I particularly even care about the aims of “them goldurn terr’ists” any longer, so long as they’re not impacting me.

    I won’t be encouraging my children to serve in the military, or any of the security aspects of the national government.

    The days when I was “proud to be ‘Murkan” are over. I’m trying to figure out how to expatriate my family for the brief black/white/hispanic/indigenous/exurb/rural/urban/USAF/USA/USN crackup.

  44. 44.

    Omnes Omnibus

    December 5, 2010 at 3:14 pm

    @Seebach: You are entitled to your opinion.

  45. 45.

    Perry Como

    December 5, 2010 at 3:15 pm

    @JasonF:

    The fact that he’s got an “insurance file” says to me he’s not a journalist; he’s a common thug.

    Back in the late 90s Assange was pioneering work in rubber hose cryptanalysis. He was developing crypto systems that give humanitarians plausible deniability if they were arrested and tortured by repressive regimes. Seriously.

    matoko_chan is right. Lieberman and his ilk have no idea what is going on. And the folks in the government who do know what is going on are probably shitting themselves.

  46. 46.

    Seebach

    December 5, 2010 at 3:16 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: Also, please note that Senators are still all millionaires who are largely unaffected by any results of their decisions. Pin all your hopes of your future on Presidents Lieberman, Snowe, McCain, & company. Or maybe President Palin will give you the change you’re looking for?

  47. 47.

    Omnes Omnibus

    December 5, 2010 at 3:18 pm

    @Seebach: President Palin, you are going to throw that at me? What happened to the rules of civilized debate?

  48. 48.

    matoko_chan

    December 5, 2010 at 3:19 pm

    @Chuck Butcher: this relly pisses me off.
    racheting up the secrecy is EXACTLY how Assanges systemkiller works.

    it for sure will push it to be more reactionary though it might also have the good effect of reducing the amount of secrets filed as simply unmanagable in the face of such an adversary.

    the current leaks are part of the system-killer design that is being field tested.
    Dont you read anything i say?
    Assange is field testing a closed informations system killer. it will not displace anything if it works.

    alien-radio: To massively simplify. Success is built on having a nice open functioning OODA (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act) loop. When A paranoid system adds layer after layer of security, bluffs, FUD, etc. at increasing strength as the core of the system is approached, Information flow across the entire system is compromised, and the OODA loops of the component parts start getting more and more out of whack,they respond to information more and more slowly, make decisions slower, or worse always make the SAME decision etc. This is how non linear information systems collapse.
    If you can complete your OODA loop faster than your opponent you will win.

    Assange is dripping the diplo cables out one per hour. Why?

    In this sense, most of the media commentary on the latest round of leaks has totally missed the point. After all, why are diplomatic cables being leaked? These leaks are not specifically about the war(s) at all, and most seem to simply be a broad swath of the everyday normal secrets that a security state keeps from all but its most trusted hundreds of thousands of people who have the right clearance. Which is the point: Assange is completely right that our government has conspiratorial functions. What else would you call the fact that a small percentage of our governing class governs and acts in our name according to information which is freely shared amongst them but which cannot be shared amongst their constituency? And we all probably knew that this was more or less the case; anyone who was surprised that our embassies are doing dirty, secretive, and disingenuous political work as a matter of course is naïve. But Assange is not trying to produce a journalistic scandal which will then provoke red-faced government reforms or something, precisely because no one is all that scandalized by such things any more. Instead, he is trying to strangle the links that make the conspiracy possible, to expose the necessary porousness of the American state’s conspiratorial network in hopes that the security state will then try to shrink its computational network in response, thereby making itself dumber and slower and smaller.

  49. 49.

    ricky

    December 5, 2010 at 3:19 pm

    So when will Wiki dump the files on Assange’s custody case in which he tried to separate the child he fathered from its mother? You remember, it is the one his mother describes as causing his brown hair to turn white and left him with untreated post traumatic stress syndrome?

  50. 50.

    Martin

    December 5, 2010 at 3:20 pm

    Yeah, I warned about this.

    insurance.aes256 is all over bittorrent now, as well as a ton of other wikileaks content including the entire cable dump. There’s no possible way to block this effort. With a click I could be hosting all of the Wikileaks content. Any of you could as well.

    Since no citizens outside of the US gives a shit about the repercussions of doing hosting this content, then there’s no way to stop it.

  51. 51.

    Omnes Omnibus

    December 5, 2010 at 3:20 pm

    @matoko_chan: Jesus, you are just spamming this stuff now.

  52. 52.

    Seebach

    December 5, 2010 at 3:22 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: I was being serious. Obviously the Senate has castrated Obama. I just don’t know what the alternative is. If it’s not Palin, and Wikileaks is a big bad, then where does change come from?

  53. 53.

    RSA

    December 5, 2010 at 3:22 pm

    @Michael:
    __

    Bitch McConnell is prattling on today about how Assange is a “high tech terrorist”.

    Some people don’t seem to understand the “terror” part of “terrorism”. (Or “high tech”, for that matter.)

  54. 54.

    sukabi

    December 5, 2010 at 3:23 pm

    @Michael: McConnell can say that all he wants… the truth is that Assange hasn’t hacked anything… but the DOS attacks against his website are considered cyber terrorism… so who’s the real “terrorist”? think about that.

  55. 55.

    Seebach

    December 5, 2010 at 3:24 pm

    @ricky: Everytime you make Wikileaks about Assange, Assange laughs at you. Son of a bitch is good.

  56. 56.

    Stillwater

    December 5, 2010 at 3:25 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: I don’t think correcting people by presenting Assange’s own words constitutes spam. But I’m with MC on all this, especially her analysis of Assage’s motives and strategy.

  57. 57.

    ricky

    December 5, 2010 at 3:26 pm

    @Michael:

    In addition to no longer giving military personnel discounts and expatriating your family from Murica, you had best expatriate your business from any bank accounts connected to Bank of America. The documents Wikileak dumps may have numbers allowing your funds to be looted and your identity to be stolen by hero hackers. Assange is Neo. Have a cookie.

  58. 58.

    Omnes Omnibus

    December 5, 2010 at 3:26 pm

    @Seebach: I am not saying that Wikileaks is a big bad. I am saying that people in government have responsibilities that Wikileaks does not. I am not claiming that the all the Democrats are doing a great job of living up to those responsibilities. Anarchy, however, does not appeal to me, and Assange appears to be an anarchist.

  59. 59.

    Erikthe Red

    December 5, 2010 at 3:27 pm

    I started downloading that so-called Insurance file once, but then the paranoiac in me stopped it. Couldn’t help thinking about feds on my doorstep the next day.

  60. 60.

    Omnes Omnibus

    December 5, 2010 at 3:29 pm

    @Stillwater: She is, and has been, posting this series of quotations and her related questions on virtually every thread for a couple of days now. That is why I called it spamming.

  61. 61.

    bjacques

    December 5, 2010 at 3:29 pm

    I know the bank leaks are planned for next year, but I really think the folks at Wikileaks ought to consider moving them forward. While Assange, the public face of Wikileaks, stays in hiding, the other side has control of the narrative. It’s easy for angry governments and the established press to cry “terrorist” while the focus is on diplomatic gossip and the odd revelations on Iraq and Afghanistan. It’s less so if the victim is a bank that may be notorious for causing and/or benefitting from the bubble and bailout, especially given the current bad economy.

    And it’s not like the bank leaks have to be redacted as heavily as the cables were; nobody’s likely to die over them.

    @wenchacha: Unfortunately, Wikileaks didn’t have those diplomatic cables in hand during Bush’s reign of error. We’ll have to settle for Bush administration principals taking occasional kneeings in the groin at a time when they wish only to enjoy their retirements and the well-earned thanks of a grateful nation.

    They did stick a finger in the eye of Scientology some years back.

    @Norman Rogers: It’s certainly possible for someone at the NSA to download the insurance file, make a snack of the 256-bit encryption and, pausing only to burp, and forward it to the proper authorities. It might mean more late-night phone calls from the Secretary of State and even the President, but it would put a shape to the problem.

  62. 62.

    Seebach

    December 5, 2010 at 3:29 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: In theory, yes, we live in a constitutional republic where representatives are held accountable. Looking at the way Lieberman was able to cling on despite being defeated, among other things, suggests to me that the system is broken. Americans don’t protest, and are toothless sheep. I honestly don’t know the impetus for any change unless some crazy anarchist burns some shit down.

    It’s not an ideal system, but I don’t know what the alternative is.

  63. 63.

    ricky

    December 5, 2010 at 3:31 pm

    @Seebach:

    I have it on excellent authority from those in the majority of the Real Progressive Base commentariat that Obama’s birth certificate will reveal he never had balls. So if the Senate Republicans castrated him it was a symbollic act, like the House vote on purging the deficit causing tax cuts for the very, very rich for the economic stimulating tax cuts for the not so rich and everyone else.

  64. 64.

    Seebach

    December 5, 2010 at 3:31 pm

    @bjacques: Agreed. Wish Assange would do the bank documents now. Seems like a major PR coup that would make him a lot more friends than this.

  65. 65.

    Erikthe Red

    December 5, 2010 at 3:31 pm

    @lol:

    The Bank of America leak couldn’t happen to a better financial institution.

    I agree with this part the most.

  66. 66.

    Spencer

    December 5, 2010 at 3:31 pm

    “This sort of naivete always amuses me. Unbreakable for whom?”

    uh, unbreakable for anybody. You’d need a quantum computer, or a computer the size of the universe running as long as the universe has existed, to have a shot at it. To ‘break’ a code like this means that instead of taking a gazillion hundred bazillion trillion years to decrypt the file, it only takes a gazillion hundred bazillion billion years to decrypt it instead, it doesn’t mean decrypting the file. It’s unbreakable.

    I bet assange has already revealed the passphrase to the us government, to prove he’s not bluffing. I bet the file decrypts into a few leaks and another encrypted file. I bet because of this he’s being protected.

    He’s the most powerful person in the world right now. It’s auspicious that there is such a strong reaction to what he is doing, it means the shadow government is vulnerable.

  67. 67.

    Corner Stone

    December 5, 2010 at 3:34 pm

    @Chuck Butcher: I don’t think being a martyr makes much sense these days.

  68. 68.

    Seebach

    December 5, 2010 at 3:36 pm

    @Erikthe Red: But to get the Bank of America leak means we have to put up with the cable link, and the fact that Assange may be a horrible person. This is really the only Wikileaks we’ve got.

    So far, it’s my understanding that Obama has more blood on his hands that Assange does, unless someone would like to prove otherwise?

  69. 69.

    matoko_chan

    December 5, 2010 at 3:36 pm

    @Perry Como:

    matoko_chan is right. Lieberman and his ilk have no idea what is going on. And the folks in the government who do know what is going on are probably shitting themselves.

    well that and they are putting out their propaganda core like Douchebag and Bobo. “nothing to see here, move along now.’
    Cole sure bought that one, along with at least half of the juciers.
    but at least he got the luck after i called him out.
    Assange is playing the feds. They look like keystone cops. i think CS pointed out that Amazon was an easter egg Assange already hid.
    Liberman is a dolt– Assange has mirror sites and clones all over. He is just whipping up the kabuki for MAXIMUM EXPOSURE, one of wikileaks prime directives.
    The feds have not been able to stop him.
    they tried with the Iraq drop, they tried with diplo cables.
    Fail.
    The diplo cables are still dripping paranoia infection on the OODA loops. One per hour. only about 700 have been released out of 250k.
    the closed information system/organism of the security state is reacting with perfect predictability. Assange laid this all out in Mission statement, and Bady analyzed it.
    can’t you guys read?

  70. 70.

    Corner Stone

    December 5, 2010 at 3:36 pm

    @Seebach: The historical 95% return rate for incumbent elected officials is a bad sign as well.

  71. 71.

    Martin

    December 5, 2010 at 3:36 pm

    @Roger Moore: Well, kinda.

    A 256 bit key could require as many as 2^256 attempts to break. That’d pretty much exhaust all of the computational power on earth for months or years. That also assumes the last key you test is the right key. If the first key you test is the right key, well, you win early. It’s not a guarantee – it’s a statistical cost.

    That said, most known cryptographic keys have known flaws. These aren’t ‘push a button and you’re in’ flaws, they’re flaws in how the keys are generated such that you generate keys, test them against the encrypted data, spot certain things, and as a result rule out some of the key depth. So rather than 2^256 attempts, you might knock that down to 2^240 attempts. Get it down low enough, and they’ll break it. Combine that with the assumption that a passcode that long is unlikely to be random, and they could knock it down pretty fast assuming it’s not. Assange isn’t an idiot at this stuff by any measure. It’ll almost certainly be a fully random passcode, so they’ll have to do it the hard way.

    If the academic community finds these flaws, they get published. If the military community finds them they don’t necessarily get published. Are they good enough to get this cracked brute force? It’s possible. I don’t think they’ll care enough, however, to even task someone with trying. Far more important shit out there.

  72. 72.

    matoko_chan

    December 5, 2010 at 3:40 pm

    @Spencer: he has already decrypted it.
    the problem with fighting hacktivists, is they make the ice.
    so they can break the ice.
    the US gov is stuck in 20 yr old techno.
    STUXNET? its a just a fucking worm. 20 year old technology.
    Like Sooner pointed out, the feds have to hire hacker talent, like paying taxpayer dollares to skiddies and spammers to DDOS Wikileaks and jihaadi websites.
    Assange is at least 10 hops ahead of them.

  73. 73.

    Corner Stone

    December 5, 2010 at 3:40 pm

    @ricky: I’ve read a couple different versions of this incident. Really not very relevant.

  74. 74.

    jwb

    December 5, 2010 at 3:40 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: In other words, Assange is acting just like the Republicans?

  75. 75.

    matt

    December 5, 2010 at 3:41 pm

    @Spencer: Clearly he has to be protected, from at very least hostile third parties who would love to have the encryption key. But how do you know this?

  76. 76.

    Erikthe Red

    December 5, 2010 at 3:41 pm

    @Seebach:

    I just realized something just now: my house was refinanced this year with BofA.

    Shit.

  77. 77.

    Omnes Omnibus

    December 5, 2010 at 3:42 pm

    @jwb: Interesting take on it.

  78. 78.

    Chuck Butcher

    December 5, 2010 at 3:43 pm

    @matoko_chan:
    Look, you’re talking about breaking a system that damn near everybody agrees has some very real and important functions, despite the abuses and excesses I neither condone or minimize. There are things that should not be and cannot be public, the argument is what those are.

    I’m not trying to minimize Wikileaks or condemn it or laugh at its technical abilities. That system is not going to collapse because very few have an interest in it doing so.

    I have actual work to do so I’ll stop in after dark here in the hinterlands of nasty ole Bend, OR.

  79. 79.

    ricky

    December 5, 2010 at 3:43 pm

    @Corner Stone:

    Give us the raw files and let us decide what is relevant.
    Surely if he has the bad judgement to bring a child into the world with an unfit mother, we ought to be able to review those documents. They are government documents. It is a conspiracy not to give us the information.

  80. 80.

    matoko_chan

    December 5, 2010 at 3:44 pm

    @bjacques: but you dont get it.
    the slow leak of the diplo cables is PART OF THE SYSTEM DESIGN.
    there is a field test of a closed information systemkiller RUNNING RIGHT NAOW.
    And as far as i can tell, it is Working As Intended.

  81. 81.

    Seebach

    December 5, 2010 at 3:46 pm

    @ricky: You think you’re being clever, but you’re really not.

  82. 82.

    Chuck Butcher

    December 5, 2010 at 3:47 pm

    @Corner Stone: It’s never made much sense to anybody but the martyr … and history. There’s the rub.

    I have to go “play” in the snow…

  83. 83.

    Spencer

    December 5, 2010 at 3:47 pm

    @martin

    Thanks for taking on the 256 key with less, em, rhetorical flourish and more accuracy. 2 questions.

    Isn’t it in wikileaks interest for the US government to know the contents of the file, or at least a subset of them? If the point of the insurance is to provide insurance against neutralization, wouldn’t wikileaks want the US government to know the file isn’t a bluff?

    What happens to the decryption game if the file decrypts into more encrypted files?

    For example, decrypt the file, out comes a pdf with the cia’s missing crown jewel, an unredacted list of undercover CIA operatives in war zones, pictures of dick cheney eating a baby with his bare hands and 4 more encrypted files labeled BP, BofA, GoldmanSachs and GovCIATheFedetc.

  84. 84.

    Neo

    December 5, 2010 at 3:48 pm

    The one commodity missing from all the WikiLeaks documents .. anything resembling “Smart Diplomacy”

  85. 85.

    kdaug

    December 5, 2010 at 3:49 pm

    @ricky: A red cookie, or blue one?

  86. 86.

    Vicodin

    December 5, 2010 at 3:50 pm

    @Michael: Precisely. Assange likely chose Amazon with the expectation that the US government would attempt to shut it down, thereby exposing the public to the unhappy truth that “freedom” is often a mirage. As he writes:

    Authoritarian regimes give rise to forces which oppose them by pushing against the individual and collective will to freedom, truth and self realization. Plans which assist authoritarian rule, once discovered, induce resistance. Hence these plans are concealed by successful authoritarian powers. This is enough to define their behavior as conspiratorial.

    Reality is increasingly turning into a William Gibson novel.

  87. 87.

    matoko_chan

    December 5, 2010 at 3:50 pm

    @Chuck Butcher:

    breaking a system that damn near everybody agrees has some very real and important functions, despite the abuses and excesses I neither condone or minimize. There are things that should not be and cannot be public, the argument is what those are.

    but that is exactly the beauty of Assanges systemkiller. The defense is dont be evil. From Assanges Mission Statement.

    The more secretive or unjust an organization is, the more leaks induce fear and paranoia in its leadership and planning coterie. This must result in minimization of efficient internal communications mechanisms (an increase in cognitive “secrecy tax”) and consequent system-wide cognitive decline resulting in decreased ability to hold onto power as the environment demands adaption. Hence in a world where leaking is easy, secretive or unjust systems are nonlinearly hit relative to open, just systems. Since unjust systems, by their nature induce opponents, and in many places barely have the upper hand, mass leaking leaves them exquisitely vulnerable to those who seek to replace them with more open forms of governance.

    Bady’s analysis.

    He [Assange] decides, instead, that the most effective way to attack this kind of organization would be to make “leaks” a fundamental part of the conspiracy’s information environment. Which is why the point is not that particular leaks are specifically effective. Wikileaks does not leak something like the “Collateral Murder” video as a way of putting an end to that particular military tactic; that would be to target a specific leg of the hydra even as it grows two more. Instead, the idea is that increasing the porousness of the conspiracy’s information system will impede its functioning, that the conspiracy will turn against itself in self-defense, clamping down on its own information flows in ways that will then impede its own cognitive function. You destroy the conspiracy, in other words, by making it so paranoid of itself that it can no longer conspire

  88. 88.

    jwb

    December 5, 2010 at 3:50 pm

    @Seebach: Unless that BoA dump doesn’t actually have all that much that’s damning and so it serves better as a threat than in reality.

  89. 89.

    Spencer

    December 5, 2010 at 3:51 pm

    @matoko_chan:

    I don’t know anything about what’s in the file, but if I were assange, that’s how I would play it. I’d have levels of insurance embedded within the insurance file so I had options beyond all or nothing release of the files. It just makes sense to play it that way.

  90. 90.

    Martin

    December 5, 2010 at 3:51 pm

    @Seebach: Depends. If the news is so bad that it crashes BofA (which I’m skeptical it’d be that bad, but it may not take much right now), it may not win him many fans. One out of 2 households do business with BofA. If their balance sheet is as bad as some people think, the US Government would need to take over the bank instantly, and if they hold true to the finreg laws, every investor will get fucked. That’s basically most *other* banks, most hedge funds, most mutual funds – and not just in the US, but internationally as well, and FDIC doesn’t have the money to cover account holders, so that money would be taken out as well. Investors would almost certainly take a 100% loss.

    It’ll hurt. A lot. Enough that nobody should be wishing for it. It needs to be fixed, not blown apart.

  91. 91.

    Seebach

    December 5, 2010 at 3:53 pm

    @Martin: Is it politically feasible for it to get fixed? Where will the will for that come from?

  92. 92.

    matoko_chan

    December 5, 2010 at 3:54 pm

    @Spencer: they know its not a bluff.
    collateral murder used the same crypto.
    they have known since July when judas-hacker Lamo sold Manning out that Wikileaks has the diplo cables and the garani massacre video, the Iraq war logs and the Gitmo docs.
    i dont know about the source of the BoA stuff.
    emergent leaks is part of Assanges design.
    he wants to see a thousand flowers leaks bloom in all the paranoid systems.

  93. 93.

    matoko_chan

    December 5, 2010 at 3:59 pm

    @Spencer: Assange is lightyears ahead of that. you should read his mission statement.
    i dont know if the closed information systems killer is going to work, it seems to be WAI so far, but if it does we are in the middle of an ELE (extinction level event) for the traditional security state.
    its amazing!
    that is why i dont get all the ennui and buying into Douthats crap propaganda…..
    /bewildered outrage

  94. 94.

    Corner Stone

    December 5, 2010 at 4:01 pm

    @ricky: If you’re being funny then this is funny.

  95. 95.

    matoko_chan

    December 5, 2010 at 4:02 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: AMG if Assanges system-killer works we are witnessing an ELE on the future of the traditional security state!
    What is wrong with you?

  96. 96.

    Corner Stone

    December 5, 2010 at 4:03 pm

    @Martin:

    It’ll hurt. A lot. Enough that nobody should be wishing for it. It needs to be fixed, not blown apart.

    The argument exists that it must be blown apart. Why aren’t banks treated as utilities? That’s what they are.

  97. 97.

    Stillwater

    December 5, 2010 at 4:04 pm

    Assange is demonstrating in a powerful way how so much of what I was conditioned from my youth to believe about my nation and its culture is complete and total bullshit.

    If you disagree with this statement, you’re a statist. If you agree with this statement but still object to Wikileaks for whatevah reason, you’re an authoritarian. If you agree with this statement and support Wikileaks, you’re a populist.

    Anyone disagree?

  98. 98.

    Roger Moore

    December 5, 2010 at 4:04 pm

    @Martin:
    There’s not even close to enough computing power on earth to brute force a 256 bit key. 2256 is about 1077. To put that in perspective, there are something like 1052 atoms in the earth. So if each atom on earth were a computer that could test a billion possible keys each second, it would take on the order of a billion years to test every possible 256 bit key. No way in hell unless there’s some serious flaw with the algorithm.

    If you can somehow cut the effective keyspace down to 128 bits, that’s still more than 1038 possible keys. Even 10 billion computers- probably more than the total number on earth- each testing 10 billion keys per second- far faster than any single computer can do today- would take longer than the life span of the earth to do it.

  99. 99.

    Omnes Omnibus

    December 5, 2010 at 4:05 pm

    @matoko_chan: I am not an anarchist.

  100. 100.

    eemom

    December 5, 2010 at 4:07 pm

    I still think Assange is a megalomaniacal asshole, but I’ve totally lost the will to give a shit what he leaks or doesn’t leak — though I would note in passing that y’all are naive starbursty-eyed dreamers if you really think his leaks are gonna do squat to any bank.

    No, I have learned to stop worrying about dead Afghani collaborators and love wikileaks. The reason is because it takes my mind off the nightmare that is unfolding on capitol hill.

    And on that note, I reiterate my appeal to Mr. Cole to FP little matoko. That would be the funniest damn thing since one of Hamsher’s groupies launched a mutiny because she decided Hamsher wasn’t a good enough progressive because she never mentions the IP issue when she’s on teevee.

    C’mon John — we seriously need some lolz around here.

  101. 101.

    ricky

    December 5, 2010 at 4:08 pm

    @Seebach: You already told me Assange laughs whn I do this. Maybe it is because you lack his jocularity that you find references to violent removal of testicles a mature metaphor for politcal outcomes.

  102. 102.

    Martin

    December 5, 2010 at 4:10 pm

    @Spencer:

    Isn’t it in wikileaks interest for the US government to know the contents of the file, or at least a subset of them? If the point of the insurance is to provide insurance against neutralization, wouldn’t wikileaks want the US government to know the file isn’t a bluff?

    Presumably the government knows what it’s lost, at least within reason.

    It’s worth noting that the hostage file isn’t government secrets, but corporate ones. This isn’t a push back against the US government. It’s a shot across the bow of the corporations that are cutting him off.

    What happens to the decryption game if the file decrypts into more encrypted files?

    That’s possible. If it’s the same encryption scheme, then it’s probably pointless. If it’s a completely different scheme, then that would require more work. There are plenty of other alternatives to AES-256.

    For example, decrypt the file, out comes a pdf with the cia’s missing crown jewel, an unredacted list of undercover CIA operatives in war zones, pictures of dick cheney eating a baby with his bare hands and 4 more encrypted files labeled BP, BofA, GoldmanSachs and GovCIATheFedetc.

    Well, Wikileaks won’t have anything that hot. If anything like that got out (and the government would know if a NOC list got out) Assange would be in a dark hole some where, and the US government is treating him as an annoyance, not as a national security threat. As for the corporate secrets, they wouldn’t care all that much.

    But yes, it could decrypt into documents the way you describe.

  103. 103.

    kdaug

    December 5, 2010 at 4:11 pm

    What I find most interesting is that all of the attention is being focused on the output of Wikileaks, not the input, which is internal whistleblowers.

    Assange is portrayed as some Bond-villain mastermind, but all he’s doing is releasing information that being provided to him, by people on the inside who see what’s going on, know it’s fucked up, and want to get the word out.

    It’s asymmetrical on both sides of the coin, and the me-too sites are already popping up. If it ain’t Assange, it will be someone else. If it ain’t Wikileaks, there will be hundreds to take it’s place.

  104. 104.

    Omnes Omnibus

    December 5, 2010 at 4:12 pm

    @Stillwater: I suppose it depends what you learned about your country in your youth. It also depends whether or not you believe that, despite its flaws, the system does more good than harm. Would that make one a statist or an authoritarian?

  105. 105.

    jeff

    December 5, 2010 at 4:12 pm

    Maybe it’s just because I’m older than Assange, but I think his “thermonuclear device” as his lawyer calls it, is unlikely to incinerate the US (his lawyer, btw, is not helping deflect the terrorism charges with these analogies). I can literally not imagine anything that could be in those files that will “bring down” several US mega-banks. Really. Insider trading, attempting or succeeding to bribe, proof of false documentation–none of that would have the effect. I do think it might have a salutary effect on the banking system, and maybe lead to some executives being fired, though.

  106. 106.

    Mike M

    December 5, 2010 at 4:18 pm

    I see no reason to aid and abet anarchists like WikiLeaks. If the organization was carefully ferreting out government malfeasance and reporting on it, I would be strongly supportive. But dumping 250K of diplomatic cables that show that the vast majority of government employees are simply attempting to do their job in facilitating the US’s public foreign policy is not whistle blowing, but vandalism. Posting stolen emails may not be criminal, but neither does it instantly qualify as journalism or a civic virtue (the recent climategate email episode comes to mind).

    I understand that WikiLeaks would like to disrupt international diplomacy and hobble what power the US might have. I am opposed to that goal and believe it is toxic to the interests of world peace, and will contribute to more global instability. I understand that there are many people who see the US government as irredeemably evil and that any effort to disrupt its operation is heroic, but I strongly disagree with these people on both the right and left.

    If WikiLeaks “insurance policy” is critical information that the public ought to have because it demonstrates illegal government activity or duplicity then they ought to release it. The fact that they haven’t makes me suspect their motives. Certainly, you wouldn’t expect the NY TImes or the Guardian to using those types of threats. If instead, the “insurance policy” is a genuine national security secret whose release would jeopardize the lives of innocents, then their blackmail is unconscionable.

  107. 107.

    Stillwater

    December 5, 2010 at 4:20 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: Yeah, good points. The interesting distinction between a statist and an authoritarian is the reasons for why they support government and the establishment. A statist will support gov. come what may. An authoritarian’s support of the state may be overdetermined, but part of his continued support will not be based on how effectively the state promotes secondary values.

    ETA: by ‘secondary values’ I mean values outside of the primary value of deferring to authority.

  108. 108.

    ricky

    December 5, 2010 at 4:21 pm

    @eemom: America requires two megomonical Aussie expatriates jacking with us at a time. If Mel Gibson had not been crucified and the alligator guy hadn’t been impaled there would be no need for St. Jules.

  109. 109.

    Roger Moore

    December 5, 2010 at 4:24 pm

    @matoko_chan:
    The problem with the “don’t be evil” idea is that it’s the flip side of the old “if you didn’t do anything wrong you don’t have anything to hide” rhetoric. It simply isn’t true. There are legitimate reasons to keep some information secret and, bluntly, no legitimate reasons to put some kinds of information in the open. Allowing an organization like Wikileaks to publish any information it feels is in the public interest to have in the open implicitly lets anyone else who gets private information to publish it. Will you really be so happy when Fundamentalist Christians decide it’s their right to steal and publish patient records from Planned Parenthood and AIDS testing labs?

  110. 110.

    Corner Stone

    December 5, 2010 at 4:25 pm

    @Mike M:

    If the organization was carefully ferreting out government malfeasance and reporting on it, I would be strongly supportive.

    Interesting. When a govt declares everything TS then how are we supposed to distinguish malfeasance?

  111. 111.

    wengler

    December 5, 2010 at 4:25 pm

    All of the corporate ducks lining up to quack is telling you that Assange is doing something important. First it was Amazon taking Wikileaks off of its servers, and then it was PayPal refusing to transact donations to the group whose “terrorism” is transparency.

    I am fully surprised that the New York Times hasn’t stopped publishing this material, instead giving a full front page ode to the security state and an apology for acting in any way against it. I suppose there is still time though.

  112. 112.

    ricky

    December 5, 2010 at 4:25 pm

    @kdaug: There are no red cookies. There are no blue cookies. Just the encrytped cookies of America.

  113. 113.

    Peter

    December 5, 2010 at 4:28 pm

    matoko_chan, do you just have a Neal Stephenson novel where your vocabulary should be?

  114. 114.

    Seebach

    December 5, 2010 at 4:29 pm

    @Mike M: Makoto-Chan is right in one respect: You people need to fucking read his stated goals.

    You’re like the people who claim that Osama bin Laden’s stated goals are that he hates America. He had a fucking plan he spelled out. It’s not something you have to guess at.

    If you’re not going to inform yourself, STFU.

  115. 115.

    Morat20

    December 5, 2010 at 4:32 pm

    @Roger Moore:
    256-bit AES? I’d be shocked if NSA couldn’t break it. Not because of back doors — AES’s algorithm is well known — but simply through brute force.

    AES is good, obviously, but personally I wouldn’t feel confidant with any key under 1k. If I was seriously thinking I’d be pissing off a major government, 4k.

    On the other hand, 256 is good enough for his purposes. Only a handful of governments could concievably break it, and it’d take them some serious run-time to do it.

  116. 116.

    Roy G

    December 5, 2010 at 4:33 pm

    Regarding encryption, it won’t mean anything if the NSA breaks it, other than they’ll know precisely how screwed they are. Other than the delicious uncertainty (it’s a hell of a lot bigger than a cat, if you know what I mean), the encryption acts as a gatekeeper, so names can in fact be redacted, but only if Wikileaks retains control.

    As much as I enjoy teh Assange cat and mouse game, I think his arrest was also factored into Wikileaks’ model; think about a show trial where Wikileaks keeps going like the Energizer bunny, even when they’re waterboarding Assange 24/7.

    The System’s trick is plain ol’ carrot and stick; they count on the fact that a large percentage of people will take the carrot and turn a blind eye to the carrotgiver’s crimes. Notwithstanding the brilliant design of Wikileaks, Assange’s most terrifying aspect is his unwillingness to cave in to corruption. Those two factors together are making the real terrorists crap their pants.

  117. 117.

    matoko_chan

    December 5, 2010 at 4:34 pm

    @Mike M: that is not what he is doing. Assange is field testing a closed information systems killer that operates by inducing an immune security response that freezes OODA loops and collapses the non-linear information system.
    @Roger Moore: they would if they could but they cant. they have no high IQ hacktivists on Team Fundie.
    @Mike M: @Omnes Omnibus: Assange is not an anarchist. Anarchists are into pure destruction.
    Assange is a quellist.

    Every previous revolutionary movement in human history has made the same basic mistake. They have all seen power as a static apparatus, as a structure. And its not. Its a dynamic, a flow system with two possible tendencies. Power either accumulates, or it diffuses throughout the system. In most societies, its in accumulative mode, and most revolutionary movements are really only interested in reconstituting the accumulation in a new location. A genuine revolution has to reverse the flow.

    pure anarchism is just destruction without replacement.
    the idea of switching on the embedded nanotech present in all humans, building localized power diffusion structure in an empowered populace is a NEW PARADIGM.
    Information transparency.
    Assanges initial power diffusion structures are leaks– he wants a thousand thousand leaks to bloom in closed information systems. the systems destroy themselves with paranoia immune response. his design is an OODA loop killer.
    Assange is not anti-American…his systems killer (if it works) is the ELE for the modern security state.
    the beauty of Assanges design is that regimes with nothing to hide from their populations are unaffected (in theory). the defense is an Open Information Society….dont be Evil.
    Assange is a new kind of revolutionary– the Crown Prince of Hacktivism.:)

  118. 118.

    ricky

    December 5, 2010 at 4:35 pm

    @Seebach: Mike M. did not mention Assange. When you make Wiki about Assange Assange laughs at you.

    If you are not going to be consistent keep broadcasting it.

  119. 119.

    matoko_chan

    December 5, 2010 at 4:36 pm

    gak.
    moderation.
    there is a limit to how many juicers i can reply in one comment i guess.

  120. 120.

    Roger Moore

    December 5, 2010 at 4:37 pm

    @Martin:

    If it’s the same encryption scheme, then it’s probably pointless. If it’s a completely different scheme, then that would require more work. There are plenty of other alternatives to AES-256.

    Not at all. The whole point of modern encryption is that you can know all of the details of the system and still be unable to crack it. The only part that’s secret is the key. So as long as he’s willing to generate and store more keys, he can make a Russian-doll like structure of one encrypted file within another. As long as it’s possible to tell when you’ve broken the encryption (i.e. as long as the outer file contains some unencrypted data that can be used to prove you’ve gotten it open) this doesn’t provide much increase in security, but that shouldn’t be a problem with AES 256.

  121. 121.

    Martin

    December 5, 2010 at 4:41 pm

    @Roger Moore: You’re still assuming too much theory holds up. We know that ALL of these encryption schemes are weak due to pseudo-random number generator limitations, and the way the encryption takes place for related keys allows attackers to (depending on the limitations of the algorithm) to sometime quickly rule bits out. 128 bit schemes have been broken by attacking these underlying flaws. Further techniques have been developed that allow for real-time decryption of AES-128 provided you have access to the machine that did the encryption. And I think we can assume that the Feds do know a fair bit about the inner workings of Wikileaks, just in case.

    Bottom line – even if a 256 bit encryption algorithm suggests that it’ll require 2^256 attacks to break, there are going to be so many flaws in implementations from random number generators, to the encryption algorithms, to hardware effects, to how people pick their keys, that those goals will never, ever be realized.

  122. 122.

    Morat20

    December 5, 2010 at 4:42 pm

    FYI, by “brute force” I don’t mean “try every possible key”. I meant using less elegant, but more computationally intensive algorithms to break it.

    Just as an offhand — neither the military nor the government transmit their best stuff over 256-bit AES. They use a much stronger key. Which says to me that, at the very least, the government worries it’s technically possible to break in a reasonable amount of time.

    I also doubt it’s worth that time, since either it’ll get out or won’t and I doubt it’s the sort of thing they can defend against. (Especially since Assange being dead would be pointing some fingers already).

    One thing I find weird is the complaints about the mix of banal and interesting in the data dumps. As far as I can tell, other than making good-faith attempts to redact personal information and stuff that rather obviously might get people killed, Wikileaks works under the “We leak it all” principle.

    After all, it’s not exactly their place to judge. They leave it to you.

  123. 123.

    matoko_chan

    December 5, 2010 at 4:42 pm

    @Roy G:

    Notwithstanding the brilliant design of Wikileaks, Assange’s most terrifying aspect is his unwillingness to cave in to corruption. Those two factors together are making the real terrorists crap their pants.

    yup, and that is why their spinners are out in force. Maybe they already HAVE offered Assange a job. :)
    But meanwhile the diplo cables go drip drip drip, the field test of Assanges systems killer humms along, and as far as i can see the system is WAI. The american security state is amping up the protocols and cutting the OODA loops or clogging them with paranoid over-classification response.
    If Assanges systems killer works this is the ELE of the modern security state.
    its mad excitin!
    Assange correctly sees the bankstahs as part of the american security state– just like OBL did.
    cudlips don’t get that i guess.
    :)

  124. 124.

    Tim

    December 5, 2010 at 4:43 pm

    @Stillwater:

    Assange is demonstrating in a powerful way how so much of what I was conditioned from my youth to believe about my nation and its culture is complete and total bullshit.
    If you disagree with this statement, you’re a statist. If you agree with this statement but still object to Wikileaks for whatevah reason, you’re an authoritarian. If you agree with this statement and support Wikileaks, you’re a populist.
    Anyone disagree?

    I AGREE one hundred percent. Times a gazillion.

  125. 125.

    Corner Stone

    December 5, 2010 at 4:43 pm

    @Roy G:

    Other than the delicious uncertainty (it’s a hell of a lot bigger than a cat, if you know what I mean)

    Is it bigger than a breadbox?

  126. 126.

    Perry Como

    December 5, 2010 at 4:45 pm

    @Martin: It’s too bad Assange isn’t a programmer who has developed crypto software…

  127. 127.

    Corner Stone

    December 5, 2010 at 4:45 pm

    First, I have no doubt the NSA has already cracked the insurance file. They know quite a bit about their target and have a shopping mall footprint worth of supercomputers underground to whirl away 24/7.
    IMO it’s part of Assange’s plan for the govt to understand what is in that file.

  128. 128.

    matoko_chan

    December 5, 2010 at 4:47 pm

    i wrote a comment about why Assange is not an anarchist, but it is in moderation.
    /sigh

  129. 129.

    Corner Stone

    December 5, 2010 at 4:50 pm

    @Morat20:

    Just as an offhand—neither the military nor the government transmit their best stuff over 256-bit AES. They use a much stronger key. Which says to me that, at the very least, the government worries it’s technically possible to break in a reasonable amount of time.

    Yes, what it suggests is they have already cracked 256 AES. They know it’s cracked.
    This has been asked before in public forums and was met with stony silence.

  130. 130.

    matoko_chan

    December 5, 2010 at 4:50 pm

    @Corner Stone: meh, its their encryption algorithm.
    they know pretty much what Manning gave Assange– but nothing i think about other leaks.
    i wish someone would put up a thread with Assanges mission statement, and no one could comment on it without reading the ms.
    i am PASSIONATELY interested in the science. Can it work?
    What will happen if it does?

  131. 131.

    Martin

    December 5, 2010 at 4:54 pm

    @Morat20: The key length is much less important than the quality of the algorithm and the quality of the implementations.

  132. 132.

    matoko_chan

    December 5, 2010 at 4:56 pm

    @All juicers
    Assange is not an anarchist. Anarchists are into pure destruction.
    Assange is a quellist.

    Every previous revolutionary movement in human history has made the same basic mistake. They have all seen power as a static apparatus, as a structure. And its not. Its a dynamic, a flow system with two possible tendencies. Power either accumulates, or it diffuses throughout the system. In most societies, its in accumulative mode, and most revolutionary movements are really only interested in reconstituting the accumulation in a new location. A genuine revolution has to reverse the flow.

    pure anarchism is just destruction without replacement.
    the idea of switching on the embedded nanotech present in all humans, building localized power diffusion structure in an empowered populace is a NEW PARADIGM.
    Information transparency.
    Assanges initial power diffusion structures are leaks– he wants a thousand thousand leaks to bloom in closed information systems. the systems destroy themselves with paranoia immune response. his design is an OODA loop killer.
    Assange is not simply anti-American…his systems killer (if it works) is the ELE for the modern security state.
    the beauty of Assanges design is that regimes with nothing to hide from their populations are unaffected (in theory). the defense is an Open Information Society….dont be Evil.
    Assange is a new kind of revolutionary– the Crown Prince of Hacktivism.:)

  133. 133.

    Martin

    December 5, 2010 at 4:57 pm

    @Perry Como: Yeah, I know where you’re coming from here, and I considered that. He could write all his own stuff. The problem is that the only way to know if the stuff you wrote is any good is to break it – and he just doesn’t have that skillset or resources.

    Odds are, he’d make things worse rather than just go with a known, high quality implementation. I trust he’s smart enough to realize that.

  134. 134.

    maus

    December 5, 2010 at 5:02 pm

    @lol:

    I think Assange is pretty much an anarchist who’s publishing this stuff not out of some higher purpose to expose corruption but simply because he can. I think he’s pretty reckless and irresponsible.

    The US is reckless and irresponsible, what’s your fucking point?

  135. 135.

    meh

    December 5, 2010 at 5:06 pm

    Keep in mind that these assholes that are introducing bills to get Assange (Ensign, Leiberman, etc) by making it a crime to “out” a US HUMINT asset were silent when Cheney and Libby outed Plame. IOKIYAR

  136. 136.

    matoko_chan

    December 5, 2010 at 5:08 pm

    @lol: wallah just read Assanges mission statement.
    you dont have a clue.
    Assange has deployed a closed information system killer that he designed.
    So far it is WAI, quietly humming along, releasing one diplo cable per hour. if you read his MS you will see why that is happening.
    So far the system under attack (the US security state) has behaved in EXACTLY the ways Assange predicted.

  137. 137.

    Mnemosyne

    December 5, 2010 at 5:09 pm

    @Martin:

    It’s worth noting that the hostage file isn’t government secrets, but corporate ones. This isn’t a push back against the US government. It’s a shot across the bow of the corporations that are cutting him off.

    This big push to shut him down didn’t happen until he started threatening corporations. Even the diplomatic stuff didn’t really cause much of a stir.

    One hopes that Assange realizes that the real censorship didn’t begin until he threatened the multinational corporations.

  138. 138.

    Delia

    December 5, 2010 at 5:12 pm

    @Stillwater:

    Assange is demonstrating in a powerful way how so much of what I was conditioned from my youth to believe about my nation and its culture is complete and total bullshit.

    If you disagree with this statement, you’re a statist. If you agree with this statement but still object to Wikileaks for whatevah reason, you’re an authoritarian. If you agree with this statement and support Wikileaks, you’re a populist.

    Anyone disagree?

    Um, yes. Maybe it’s because I came of age during the Vietnam War listening to songs like Fortunate Son or Dylan’s With God on Our Side that I got inoculated against this American exceptionalism nonsense at an early age so I’ve never had this overblown reaction against it, either. We’re a nation like any other, and make the same stupid mistakes as others before us, with our own unique twists.

    The problem with your pronouncements on Assange and Wikileaks is that you’re going to the other extreme and identifying him with all that is good and pure. Now I don’t want the authorities to catch him, and I hope he gets the bank documents out, but he certainly has an inflated ego and to think that massive document dumps against the US alone will somehow bring about world democracy is stunningly naive.

  139. 139.

    Seebach

    December 5, 2010 at 5:15 pm

    @Delia: massive document dumps against the US alone
    Anyone’s free to leak. It just seems that there are a lot of American whistleblowers who feel leaking is the right thing to do.

  140. 140.

    matoko_chan

    December 5, 2010 at 5:21 pm

    @Mnemosyne: no, the first big push to shut him down was before the Iraq doc dump.
    the US gov shut down his moneybookers account, and bullied sweden into refusing him amnesty.
    the Iraq doc release came on friday instead of monday because wikileaks was under DDOS attack from the us gov’s hired spammers and skiddies, paid for with taxpayers dollahs :)
    Assange just made his fifth column into a server cloud you stupid cudlips.

    The documents are going to get out there. You may make it difficult to centralize things, but all it takes is one person with email to make sure the documents keep moving. And there are a lot of folks out there willing to engage in a little civil disobediance to make sure these files see the light of day.

    n/e ways, the bankstahs are PART of the security state.
    OBL understood that perfectly.
    Only cudlips don’t.

  141. 141.

    matoko_chan

    December 5, 2010 at 5:22 pm

    moderation AGAIN?
    why meh?

    lawl. :)

  142. 142.

    arguingwithsignposts

    December 5, 2010 at 5:23 pm

    @eemom:

    on that note, I reiterate my appeal to Mr. Cole to FP little matoko.

    EDK II: The Cudlipening!

  143. 143.

    matoko_chan

    December 5, 2010 at 5:23 pm

    @Mnemosyne: no, the first big push to shut him down was before the Iraq doc dump.
    the US gov shut down his moneybookers account, and bullied sweden into refusing him amnesty.
    the Iraq doc release came on friday instead of monday because wikileaks was under DDOS attack from the us gov’s hired spammers and skiddies, paid for with taxpayers dollahs :)
    Assange just made his fifth column into a server cloud.
    The documents are going to get out there. You may make it difficult to centralize things, but all it takes is one person with email to make sure the documents keep moving. And there are a lot of folks out there willing to engage in a little civil disobediance to make sure these files see the light of day.
    n/e ways, the bankstahs are PART of the security state.
    OBL understood that perfectly even if you dont.

  144. 144.

    burnspbesq

    December 5, 2010 at 5:29 pm

    As was discussed here a few days ago, Assange is a non-state political actor, trying to remake the world according to his own design while being accountable to no one.

    There is no reason why anyone who doesn’t like Assange’s design has to sit idly by and allow him to impose it on the world.

    I’d respect him more if he would own up to what he’s doing and subject himself to normal political accountability.

    By choosing to be above and outside the law, he has made it inevitable that some country will send its intelligence service after him. And they will get him, unless he is in a Swedish or American prison. And when they get him, I will just shake my head and repeat the old slogan, “when you aim at the king, don’t miss.”

  145. 145.

    Corner Stone

    December 5, 2010 at 5:38 pm

    @burnspbesq:

    I’d respect him more if he would own up to what he’s doing and subject himself to normal political accountability.

    No you wouldn’t. You’d dismiss him as some kook who was arrested by a national security state apparatus. “Obviously he’s guilty of something if they arrested him.”

  146. 146.

    matoko_chan

    December 5, 2010 at 5:41 pm

    @burnspbesq: its all kabuki, burn.
    its part of his plan.
    He may be planning to be arrested.
    MAXIMIZE EXPOSURE is one of Wikileaks prime directives.
    And arresting Assange wont stop the field test. His system killer is humming quietly along, drip drip dripping out the diplo cables.
    if it works (and it is WAI so far) it will be the ELE of the modern security state.
    Assange just made his fifth column into a distributed server cloud you stupid cudlips.

    The documents are going to get out there. You may make it difficult to centralize things, but all it takes is one person with email to make sure the documents keep moving. And there are a lot of folks out there willing to engage in a little civil disobediance to make sure these files see the light of day.

    Assange is 10 hops out, in ammurikkka’s base, killin’ her doodz.

  147. 147.

    FeFiFo

    December 5, 2010 at 5:47 pm

    I’ll take Assange’s vision for the world over the United States’ vision of hypercapitalism and the plutocracy winning the class war any day of the week.

  148. 148.

    Martin

    December 5, 2010 at 5:51 pm

    @Mnemosyne: Well, I generally agree with the caveat that government retaliation against these efforts will be either fully secret or deniable. That deniability often comes through corporations.

    So what we see likely isn’t an accurate reflection of what is happening.

    But at least in the last group of leaks, it doesn’t seem that the government is engaging in as much of this as people thought. The pressure against foreign governments dealing with Bush’s rendition and torture stuff is the most damaging, but I’m not quite sure why people think the government isn’t going to act in the best interest of their agencies and workers, even when they disagree with the actions undertaken. That’s pretty classic behavior for any organization.

  149. 149.

    Delia

    December 5, 2010 at 5:54 pm

    @FeFiFo:

    the United States’ vision of hypercapitalism and the plutocracy

    Well, that’s been pretty obviously doomed for quite some time in any case. I think we were all hoping when Obama was elected that things could be reversed, but once you’ve traveled down the river too far you just can’t get back, no matter how loud you squawk about how exceptional you are.

  150. 150.

    Martin

    December 5, 2010 at 5:57 pm

    I’d respect him more if he would own up to what he’s doing and subject himself to normal political accountability.

    Normal political accountability? No such thing in spy and corporate trade, which he’s on the boundary of. It’s not that he’s outside of the law (he’s not, as far as I’ve seen so far) it’s that there are no rules for what happens to him. I don’t see why anyone should expect him to subject himself to a set of rules that haven’t been written yet.

  151. 151.

    AhabTRuler

    December 5, 2010 at 6:01 pm

    @Martin: Your analysis of this issue has been quite helpful and informative. Thanks.

  152. 152.

    THE

    December 5, 2010 at 6:08 pm

    Matoko,
    I don’t think it’s true that don’t be bad would protect any nation. I’m not just talking about USA here.

    First of all people can steal data for lots of reasons. Maybe their boss was rude to them or some other personal issues, maybe they are delusional. Maybe they are loyal to another country/religion/philosophy, and it is the other party that has the hostile intentions.

    Is Assange going to be Judge and Jury of all the evils in the world? What about if it has different imitators with different loyalties and philosophies.

    The truth is that the technology that Assange is deploying is amoral. It could be used by anyone who wants to harm anyone for any reason, by exposing their secrets.

    It could only be OK, if you think no-one, anytime, anywhere, has legitimate reasons for secrecy.

  153. 153.

    meh

    December 5, 2010 at 6:11 pm

    @THE:

    Is Assange going to be Judge and Jury of all the evils in the world?

    Nope – he is giving everyone a jury of their peers – he is merely providing the forum.

  154. 154.

    Peter

    December 5, 2010 at 6:12 pm

    matoko, your line about nations that don’t do things wrong having nothing to fear is garbage. Just because a deicision is morally just, does not mean it will necessarily be popular, and vice-versa.

  155. 155.

    FeFiFo

    December 5, 2010 at 6:12 pm

    @Delia:

    I think Abby Hoffman was right and it was lost decades ago. I’m just glad the technology came along (and managed to keep its fangs) which is currently providing the way to expose the system for what it is.

  156. 156.

    matoko_chan

    December 5, 2010 at 6:22 pm

    @Peter: no, it is the system design.
    The US system is the field lab experiment for Assanges design of a paranoia frag bomb on security states.
    The beauty of Assanges system killer (if it works) is that the more unjust a regime is, the more vulnerable it is to this attack.
    The defense is simply, dont be evil.
    Please dont try to tell me what Assange is trying to do if you havent read his mission statement.
    it pisses me off and makes me think you are a cudlip.

    The more secretive or unjust an organization is, the more leaks induce fear and paranoia in its leadership and planning coterie. This must result in minimization of efficient internal communications mechanisms (an increase in cognitive “secrecy tax”) and consequent system-wide cognitive decline resulting in decreased ability to hold onto power as the environment demands adaption. Hence in a world where leaking is easy, secretive or unjust systems are nonlinearly hit relative to open, just systems. Since unjust systems, by their nature induce opponents, and in many places barely have the upper hand, mass leaking leaves them exquisitely vulnerable to those who seek to replace them with more open forms of governance.

    Assange is introducing a paranoia infection into a closed information system. He believes that will induce a classification overdose, a cognitive secrecy tax he calls it, cutting or slowing OODA loops. this is actually happening.
    The system essentially dies of paranoia poisoning. The more unjust a regime is, the more paranoid it is.

  157. 157.

    burnspbesq

    December 5, 2010 at 6:28 pm

    @matoko_chan:

    Let’s assume for purposes of discussion that what you describe in comment 156 were to come to fruition.

    We’re still waiting for Assange (and you, as his surrogate here) to answer one simple question. If you can’t or won’t answer this question, you’re unworthy of being taken seriously and should just STFU.

    “Then what?”

  158. 158.

    WyldPirate

    December 5, 2010 at 6:28 pm

    @Norman Rogers:

    appears to be encrypted with a 256-digit key. Experts said last week it was virtually unbreakable.

    Not saying that it is impossible, but the number of different combinations if you use 26 letters and 10 digits in the code is 2.6xE258 or 21.5 trillion trillion possible different combination of numbers and letters.

  159. 159.

    Omnes Omnibus

    December 5, 2010 at 6:32 pm

    @burnspbesq:

    “Then what?”

    I wonder about the same thing.

  160. 160.

    matoko_chan

    December 5, 2010 at 6:36 pm

    @burnspbesq: well IF YOU READ ASSANGES MISSION STATEMENT you dumb fucking cudlip you would KNOW what Assange believes will happen.

    And whether you buy his argument or not, Assange has a clearly articulated vision for how Wikileaks’ activities will “carry us through the mire of politically distorted language, and into a position of clarity,” a strategy for how exposing secrets will ultimately impede the production of future secrets. The point of Wikileaks — as Assange argues — is simply to make Wikileaks unnecessary.

  161. 161.

    THE

    December 5, 2010 at 6:36 pm

    @matoko_chan:

    I also think you exaggerate the cost of secrecy.

    I think the human/AI hybrid system is getting smarter all the time and technologies like encryption and biometrics and ever more clever software to control access, will actually keep the cost of secrecy quite manageable.

    There is an arms race between the secret keepers and the secret revealers, but it is like the arms race between the virus writers and the antivirus software providers, there is a level of reasonable security at reasonable price. Some secrets are more vital and you will pay more to protect them. Some are low value and only need lower security.

  162. 162.

    matoko_chan

    December 5, 2010 at 6:38 pm

    I PERSONALLY think it will be the ELE (extinction level event) of the modern security state.
    again, i don’t know if it will work.
    but so far the system is WAI.

  163. 163.

    matoko_chan

    December 5, 2010 at 6:42 pm

    @THE: wallah, spock will YOU FUCKING READ WHAT ASSANGE IS TRYING??
    he is talking about a paranoia infection on a cognitive entity, a conspiracy.
    we arent even close in Strong AI and you know it.

  164. 164.

    THE

    December 5, 2010 at 6:45 pm

    @matoko_chan:

    But so far only pretty low level, not terribly important or secret stuff has been revealed.

    Even your video was something the pentagon was thinking of releasing anyway and maybe decided not to risk it.
    But I doubt it will be the end of the world if it gets out.

  165. 165.

    matoko_chan

    December 5, 2010 at 6:46 pm

    if the cost of keeping secrets is exponentially MORE leaks, then secret keeping becomes non-cost viable.
    that is what Assange is trying to accomplish.

    give me an example of a secret that needed to be kept from the american people in anything that Assange has released.

  166. 166.

    WyldPirate

    December 5, 2010 at 6:49 pm

    @matoko_chan:

    I PERSONALLY think it will be the ELE (extinction level event) of the modern security state.

    From reading what you posted in the quote above and from the interpretation of Assange’s aim, it’s pretty clear that that’s what he wants to achieve.

    But what motivation do governments or industry have if their info is NOT compromised?

    There will always be a need to keep information/data secret. Sure, the state or businesses might get more paranoid and more suppressive, but what purpose does it serve if they go to such extremes to hide activities that the functionality of the state/business/institution breaks down?

    No one seems to be served by that sort of situation.

  167. 167.

    matoko_chan

    December 5, 2010 at 6:52 pm

    @THE:
    AMG YOU FUCKING CUDLIP
    how many times do i have to link this?

    After all, why are diplomatic cables being leaked? These leaks are not specifically about the war(s) at all, and most seem to simply be a broad swath of the everyday normal secrets that a security state keeps from all but its most trusted hundreds of thousands of people who have the right clearance. Which is the point: Assange is completely right that our government has conspiratorial functions. What else would you call the fact that a small percentage of our governing class governs and acts in our name according to information which is freely shared amongst them but which cannot be shared amongst their constituency? And we all probably knew that this was more or less the case; anyone who was surprised that our embassies are doing dirty, secretive, and disingenuous political work as a matter of course is naïve. But Assange is not trying to produce a journalistic scandal which will then provoke red-faced government reforms or something, precisely because no one is all that scandalized by such things any more. Instead, he is trying to strangle the links that make the conspiracy possible, to expose the necessary porousness of the American state’s conspiratorial network in hopes that the security state will then try to shrink its computational network in response, thereby making itself dumber and slower and smaller.

    there have only been ~700 cables released– one per hour out of 250k.
    it is BY DESIGN. Assange is trying to clog the OODA loops with system paranoia. drip drip drip. it is not the CONTENT.
    it is the constant stimulus of the security state paranoia relex.

  168. 168.

    matoko_chan

    December 5, 2010 at 6:54 pm

    @WyldPirate:

    There will always be a need to keep information/data secret.

    WHY? why not let humans decide for themselves?
    did you forget i am a fucking quellist???????

  169. 169.

    Roy G

    December 5, 2010 at 6:55 pm

    @Corner Stone

    Is it bigger than a breadbox?

    I don’t know if it is alive or dead.

  170. 170.

    matoko_chan

    December 5, 2010 at 6:59 pm

    it is the constant stimulus of the security state paranoia reFlex.

    jesus mary and joseph you stupid cudlips.

    i try to be polite and you fucking drive me over the edge every time.

  171. 171.

    Corner Stone

    December 5, 2010 at 7:00 pm

    @THE: God in His heaven.
    The POINT, you are missing it.
    The cost of secrecy is exponential. In software and human dimensions.
    Jesu de Cristo.

  172. 172.

    Kiril

    December 5, 2010 at 7:01 pm

    For those of you talking about the time needed for the government to break the encryption, keep in mind that Assange doesn’t care if the government can see the files–the government already knows the information in one form or another. The purpose of the encryption is to make sure we don’t see it unless something happens. If the NSA breaks the encryption, it doesn’t matter because the files are still out there, waiting for that key to be released.

  173. 173.

    Corner Stone

    December 5, 2010 at 7:01 pm

    I fucking HATE every one of you for making me do this. You fucking garbage time motherfuckers.
    FUCK!

  174. 174.

    burnspbesq

    December 5, 2010 at 7:03 pm

    @matoko_chan:

    That’s not an answer (or more accurately, it’s a half-assed, incomplete, unserious answer). You know that. So fuck you right back.

    If your objective is the destruction of the modern nation-state, and you have no vision for what comes after, then you shouldn’t be the least bit surprised when (a) people don’t take you seriously, and (b) the modern nation-state acts to protect itself.

    I can’t tell whether you’re naive, or stupid, or both.

  175. 175.

    matoko_chan

    December 5, 2010 at 7:04 pm

    @Corner Stone: lawl.
    u go boi.

  176. 176.

    Corner Stone

    December 5, 2010 at 7:05 pm

    @burnspbesq: What a douchebag. Chump.
    Do pee do pee doh…whu next? ? ?
    Fucking moron corporatist.

  177. 177.

    Comrade Darkness

    December 5, 2010 at 7:06 pm

    @Norman Rogers: Unbreakable for anyone with a lifespan shorter than a million years.

  178. 178.

    Delia

    December 5, 2010 at 7:07 pm

    @burnspbesq:

    “Then what?”

    I think we’re running up against different ways of looking at the world. matoko-chan and I assume Assange are seeing a digital universe and talking about subverting a computerized system. It reminds me of numerous episodes of the original Star Trek (though much more sophisticated). Others (including me) are talking about a world of historical continuity including human beings and diplomacy, which has included secrets and shading of the truth in the interests of one’s nation for many generations. It certainly does include paranoia at certain times, including a whooping dose right now. Whether that can be eliminated by “blowing up” the security apparatus isn’t clear. Whether it would make the world a better place is doubtful.

    In terms to the question “then what?” my fear is Hobbes’ state of nature.

  179. 179.

    matoko_chan

    December 5, 2010 at 7:08 pm

    @burnspbesq: hahahaha
    i told you.
    its the ELE for the modern security state.
    the end of fucking conservative ammurikkka and fucking western fucking jeebus democracy.
    the America of Jefferson and Lincoln is in no danger.
    AND I DONT FUCKING CARE.
    im a quellist

    switch it on.

  180. 180.

    THE

    December 5, 2010 at 7:08 pm

    @matoko_chan

    give me an example of a secret that needed to be kept from the american people in anything that Assange has released.

    I can’t answer that matoko, but remember not every nation has a vast military to protect them, they naturally rely more on secrecy, bluff and stealth.

    OTOH Not every country has such large important secrets to protect such as say, the US nuclear deterent.

    FWIW I am not nearly as obsessively democratic as the USA. I am nowhere near as individualistic and libertarian as most Americans.

    I am reasonably ok with today’s Communist China for instance. I wouldn’t mind living in Shanghai.
    Though I wouldn’t like to live in Iran or North Korea.

  181. 181.

    WyldPirate

    December 5, 2010 at 7:16 pm

    @matoko_chan:

    WHY? why not let humans decide for themselves?
    did you forget i am a fucking quellist???????

    In principle, I don’t disagree with you, but it runs against the selfishness of human nature.

    I tend to look at things from a biological perspective. Most human beings three main goals are to a.) survive and b.) create little copies of themselves and c.) see that they, their offspring and their immediate “tribe” survive and thrive. Now those schemes have gotten very sophisticated since we developed languages and cultures, but those are the basics even though some people have opted out of ascribing to all three (particularly b and c).

    To maximize reaching the three goals above, humans will lie, steal, cheat, kill and seek any means to create an advantage that allows themselves, their offspring and tribe to thrive. Hence the need for secrets.

    Let’s say Assange and you achieve this utopian dream where there is no longer anything that is kept secret and governments/businesses/people no longer seek to fuck over each other by keeping “secrets” from one another. The motivation will still be there for the “secrecy system” to reboot itself at some level because it gives individuals advantages in achieving those three basic goals.

    The goal is noble in a sense but the it seems to be equivalent to trying to make drive cockroaches to extinction–in doing so you would have to make life unfit for human habitation. IOW, you are can’t erase the need for humans to seek advantage over one another from their own nature.

  182. 182.

    matoko_chan

    December 5, 2010 at 7:16 pm

    @THE: that crap doesnt even deserve a response.

  183. 183.

    Peter J

    December 5, 2010 at 7:17 pm

    The contents of the insurance.aes256 file is actually a video by the British singer Rick Astley and every YouTube video containing part of this video.

  184. 184.

    matoko_chan

    December 5, 2010 at 7:22 pm

    @WyldPirate: i am a quellist.
    you dont know what that means.
    Quellism is a third culture political philosophy based on a fictional revolutionary in sci-fi author Richard K. Morgans Takeshi Kovacs cycle. In this fragment Quellcrist Falconer speaks of the demodynamic nanotech metaphor that informs her vision of an empowered populace.

    Quell: ..A Quellist society is an aware populace….demodynamic nanotech in action.
    Kovacs: Right– so the big bad oligarchs have switched off the nanotech.
    Quell: Not quite. The oligarchs aren’t an outside factor; they are like a closed subroutine that has gotten out of hand. A cancer if you want to switch analogies. They are programmed to feed off the rest of the body no matter what the cost to the system in general, and to kill off anything that competes. That is why you have to take them down first.
    Kovacs: Smash the ruling class and everything will be fine?
    Quell: No, but its a necessary first step. Every previous revolutionary movement in human history has made the same basic mistake. They have all seen power as a static apparatus, as a structure. And its not. Its a dynamic, a flow system with two possible tendencies. Power either accumulates, or it diffuses throughout the system. In most societies, its in accumulative mode, and most revolutionary movements are really only interested in reconstituting the accumulation in a new location. A genuine revolution has to reverse the flow. And no one ever does that, because they are too fucking scared of losing their conning tower moment in the historical process. If you tear down one agglutinative power dynamic and put another one in its place, you’ve changed nothing. You have got to build the structures that allow for diffusion of power, not regrouping.
    –Woken Furies

    Like Quell, I also believe the oligarchs have to be smashed….and that means the conservative fusion of big business, boutique libertarianism and judeo-christian dogma that has held a stranglehold on the American Republic for the past 2 centuries.
    maybe im wrong, but i believe every human can learn, every human wants to be free, and every human can feel love and wants to provide for their families.

    switch it on.

  185. 185.

    THE

    December 5, 2010 at 7:22 pm

    the America of Jefferson and Lincoln is in no danger

    I thought you didn’t like white male second-culture thinkers.
    Edit: oh no it’s first culture? I get confused.

  186. 186.

    matoko_chan

    December 5, 2010 at 7:30 pm

    @THE: second culture= scientists.
    Jefferson and Lincoln are third culture. natural aristoi? freeing slaves?

  187. 187.

    WyldPirate

    December 5, 2010 at 7:32 pm

    @matoko_chan:

    maybe im wrong, but i believe every human can learn, every human wants to be free, and every human can feel love and wants to provide for their families.

    Sure. This is true, but it’s like someone said above about Hobbes and the State of Nature. What I described in my post above is the most basic state. Life was brutal and vicious because of the squabble between tribes of people trying to fulfill those basic aims. This is WHY societal rules, norms and laws developed.

    This isn’t a science fiction world that we are living in. Sure there is an oligarchy, but our “system” hasn’t stayed static and it isn’t going to come crashing down just because someone steals some data and disseminates it. I just don’t see it.

  188. 188.

    THE

    December 5, 2010 at 7:35 pm

    I don’t think I could stand living in Bible belt USA on the other hand. The religious nuts would drive me crazy.

    I would consider suicide in a Sarah Palin presidency.

  189. 189.

    matoko_chan

    December 5, 2010 at 7:40 pm

    @WyldPirate:

    just because someone steals some data and disseminates it. I just don’t see it.

    and here we are right back at the start.
    there is a fucking field test of Assanges closed information system killer RUNNING RIGHT FUCKING NAOW.
    And i THINK IT IS WORKING AS INTENDED.
    and the feds are fucking trying everything they can and they CAN’T SHUT IT DOWN.
    it doesnt matter WTF burn thinks or you think or i think.
    if it works…..the world changes.

  190. 190.

    THE

    December 5, 2010 at 7:46 pm

    Matoko,

    if it works…..the world changes.

    Yes. But does it change for the better?
    What if Assange is the man who killed the World Wide Web
    because more and more countries won’t take the risk
    and will close themselves off from the Internet through strict firewalls?

    You will still have national internets of course and restricted global internet.

  191. 191.

    Jim K.

    December 5, 2010 at 7:46 pm

    R we gonna need duck-tape?

  192. 192.

    matoko_chan

    December 5, 2010 at 7:48 pm

    @Delia: thank you for a reasoned and intelligent and thoughtful reply.
    but like my shayyk Pythagoras said, numbers are the ruler of forms and thought, and the cause of gods and demons.
    the metaverse IS made of math.

  193. 193.

    matoko_chan

    December 5, 2010 at 7:50 pm

    @THE: I DON’T KNOW.
    but it is happening right NAOW.
    and i wish we could talk about that.

  194. 194.

    Perry Como

    December 5, 2010 at 7:52 pm

    Wikileaks is currently mirrored on 355 sites (updated 2010-12-06 00:25 GMT).

    You can’t stop the signal.

  195. 195.

    matoko_chan

    December 5, 2010 at 7:53 pm

    @THE:

    will close themselves off from the Internet through strict firewalls?

    the leakers of course.
    Assange believes you cant stop the signal.
    he wants a thousand leaks to bloom.

  196. 196.

    matoko_chan

    December 5, 2010 at 7:54 pm

    @Perry Como: yes.
    you cant stop the signal.

    switch it on

  197. 197.

    Perry Como

    December 5, 2010 at 7:55 pm

    Anonymous is weighing in. Lulz are imminent.

  198. 198.

    Stillwater

    December 5, 2010 at 7:55 pm

    What if Assange is the man who killed the World Wide Web

    What if he is the man who starts a nuclear war by publishing the US nuke codes? What if he is the man who destroys global capitalism and all those innocent markets by posting some trader emails? What if he is the man who proves that Barry Bonds used steroids?

    Hey, this is fun!

  199. 199.

    Martin

    December 5, 2010 at 7:59 pm

    @burnspbesq: Well, to be blunt, what Assange is doing is the equivalent to what happened to the banks at the end of 2008.

    They were piling their tower of cash high until someone came along and bumped it, and then it all came crashing down.

    The US security state is much the same way. You need to dump increasingly large amounts of time and money into it to keep it running. Until someone bumps it, that’s not going to change. This is a basic problem of entropy – keeping secrets requires constant effort. Can we afford to provide that effort?

    The only solution is to keep fewer secrets. The feds can decide how they want to do that, but ultimately, that’s the only possible outcome. I’d rather the defining moment for this to be some embarrassing State department communications and some bank memos than something really importantly secret.

    And the goal is not ‘no secrets’. I don’t think even Assange believes in that. I think the goal is ‘much fewer secrets’. Did the WH visitor lists really need to be secret? Most of the information we classify we do so because it’s embarrassing, not because it’s dangerous. If you don’t want the public to know that you invite the CEO of Exxon to your energy meeting each month, then don’t fucking invite him. Problem solved. No secrecy needed.

  200. 200.

    THE

    December 5, 2010 at 8:07 pm

    @Stillwater:

    What if he is the man who starts a nuclear war by publishing the US nuke codes? What if he is the man who destroys global capitalism…

    A rational person, using Bayesian reasoning would assign a prior probability to each one of those possibilities.

  201. 201.

    burnspbesq

    December 5, 2010 at 8:10 pm

    @Delia:

    In terms to the question “then what?” my fear is Hobbes’ state of nature.

    Dead on. Nice to know I’m not the only one thinking in those terms.

  202. 202.

    Martin

    December 5, 2010 at 8:11 pm

    @THE: Kill the internet? Also known as ‘the backbone of the US and European economies?’. I don’t think so. There is WAY more money to be made on the internet than can be lost through a bunch of leaks.

    And as I described the other day regarding secrets – if you wall off your secrets too strongly, you can’t use them. The point of having them is to use them. You have to keep them somewhat open. In that past, when all of this was paper, those walls were fairly easy to patrol. If some guy is stuffing 4 classified documents in his pants and smuggling them out of the National Archives, he’s not that hard to catch. If he’s moving them electronically, then 250,000 documents is as easy to capture as one.

    There’s no putting that genie back in the bottle – the benefits of keeping your secrets in searchable, electronic format vastly outweigh the costs, except for the most sensitive information.

  203. 203.

    Stillwater

    December 5, 2010 at 8:12 pm

    @THE: A rational person, using Bayesian reasoning would assign a prior probability to each one of those possibilities.

    A smart person would assign probabilities to each of these possibilities. A rational person would understand that their likelihood is so vanishingly small as to not even merit attention.

  204. 204.

    THE

    December 5, 2010 at 8:14 pm

    @Martin:

    You are totally right Martin. The most sensitive information should be chiselled on stone tablets so no one can carry it off ;)

  205. 205.

    burnspbesq

    December 5, 2010 at 8:18 pm

    @Martin:

    The only solution is to keep fewer secrets. The feds can decide how they want to do that, but ultimately, that’s the only possible outcome. I’d rather the defining moment for this to be some embarrassing State department communications and some bank memos than something really importantly secret

    Which takes you back to the first question from PoliSci 101: “Who decides?” AFAIC, “Julian Assange and a bunch of people whose motives and allegiances are unclear and who aren’t accountable to anyone get to decide what can be confidential and what can’t” is a really shitty answer.

  206. 206.

    Martin

    December 5, 2010 at 8:24 pm

    @burnspbesq: Well, keep in mind that the documents leaked were accessible to tens to hundreds of thousands of people – more than enough for Hobbes’ state of nature to find an implementor and to exploit the exclusive nature of the information of hand.

    Which, BTW, is exactly what happened. Since nobody seems to give a shit about 95% of what was leaked (and I think that’s generous), had they declassified that 95% and only worried about protecting and providing access to the more sensitive bits, they could probably have reduced their pool of people with access to those bits. They may well have removed Manning from needing access to any of it.

    That’s the real solution. It’s also the goal.

  207. 207.

    Bill Arnold

    December 5, 2010 at 8:24 pm

    @Norman Rogers:
    AES is generally considered a very good cipher, and had a lot of brutal examination during the selection process where it came out on top. Civilian crypto isn’t where it was in the 70s. Even DES was pretty good, except for the little keys. There were a hint or two that the NSA dropped on IBM. Differential crypto (the history is a little fuzzy here), and maybe something else.

    Wikileaks could devolve to public drops of big files encrypted or superencrypted with one or more algorithms, plus signatures with one or more very (very) large keys. It would be nearly as effective. (Assuming the public key system(s) used hasn’t (haven’t) been broken.)

  208. 208.

    matoko_chan

    December 5, 2010 at 8:32 pm

    TL; DR:
    Protest.
    Inform.
    Inquire.
    Fight.

    The future of the internet hangs in the balance.
    We are Anonymous.
    We do not forgive. We do not forget.
    Expect us.

    Operation Avenge Assange.
    i made a mirror site. 356.

    Cant stop the signal.

    switch it on.

  209. 209.

    burnspbesq

    December 5, 2010 at 8:44 pm

    @Martin:

    I must have missed the part where Julian Assange was named Declassification Czar in a free and fair democratic election.

  210. 210.

    Martin

    December 5, 2010 at 8:49 pm

    @THE: Well, that’s not far off. How many people need to access the most sensitive information? Twenty? So yeah, that either stays in paper form, or it stays in electronic form but not connected to any outside systems. The only access is physical. Usually with guys with big fucking guns protecting it. What’s the risk/reward here? If the cost of driving to the building and past the guard isn’t that high, and the cost of having that information leaked out is high, then yeah, stone tablets is a perfectly valid solution.

    Upthread a mentioned a paper from last month that shows a solution (and they’ve implemented it) for realtime decryption of AES-128 if you have physical, non-root access to the computer the encryption takes place on. By completely bypassing the security of AES-128 and relying on an almost infinitely easier effort of getting through a computer’s security, you achieve the same goal. I’ve known of critical business systems stolen not by thieves hacking into them, but by breaking the back door of the data center and wheeling the rack of computers onto a truck and driving off.

    Security involves a lot of steps. It’s only as strong as the weakest step and greater security at one step doesn’t make the step before it any stronger. The more people involved, the weaker it will be. The more components involved, the weaker it will be.

  211. 211.

    matoko_chan

    December 5, 2010 at 8:58 pm

    @burnspbesq: IT DOESN’T MATTER WHAT YOU THINK.
    it is happenning RIGHT NAOW and they cant turn it off!
    and all the feds horses and all the feds men couldn’t put the world together again.
    :)

  212. 212.

    Martin

    December 5, 2010 at 8:59 pm

    @burnspbesq: You missed a step. Wikileaks didn’t decide. Pfc. Bradley E. Manning decided, because the US Government gave him that choice by giving him access.

    In the security realm, the US government is the one that really decided. They kept that information. They classified it. They granted Manning access to it. They are smart enough to know that information will get out if the price is right – and that the more people have access, the easier it will be to find someone willing to do it.

    Supply/demand. The government increased the supply (the number of people able to provide that information) to such a point that someone was willing to give the information away for free. When you create that kind of market, you might as well just give it away yourself and save the transactional cost (the cost to keep it away from the public).

    The government made many, many decisions before this information fell in Wikileaks’ hands. This outcome was inevitable and fully predictable.

  213. 213.

    polyorchnid octopunch

    December 5, 2010 at 9:01 pm

    @Martin: I guess you’ve never considered the simple truth that real randomness is very very easy to gather from any non-trivial computer system… such as the one on your desk or lap. Hell, you can write one in perl in an afternoon (or even in something like rexx or javascript in half an hour if you’re not a masochist like those perl people are). Seriously, you don’t know what you’re talking about here. Simple things like pinging your network’s broadcast address and keeping the reply times from each of the hosts that happen to be present at that time and catting them all together would do a pretty nice job… and I’m not even an expert in that field.

    In all seriousness, the math behind crypto is pretty compelling. Unless the NSA is smarter than all the mathematicians in all the world (which I find a dubious claim at best, American exceptionalism notwithstanding), they can’t do it.

  214. 214.

    matoko_chan

    December 5, 2010 at 9:02 pm

    @Martin:

    The only solution is to keep fewer secrets.

    amazingly, that is also Assanges solution. he is forcing that solution by making it exponentially expensive to keep secrets!!!!!!
    hahahahaha
    dumb cudlips.

  215. 215.

    THE

    December 5, 2010 at 9:15 pm

    @Martin:

    stone tablets is a perfectly valid solution.

    Inside a reinforced concrete room with a door too small for the large stone tablets.

  216. 216.

    polyorchnid octopunch

    December 5, 2010 at 9:19 pm

    @matoko_chan: Matoko, much as I happen to agree with you on a lot of the whole wikileaks thing, that cudlips epithet is extremely annoying. You should knock it off. It’s not helping.

  217. 217.

    burnspbesq

    December 5, 2010 at 9:24 pm

    @matoko_chan:

    he is forcing that solution

    And you’re still dodging the fundamental question, for which you have no good answer.

    WHAT GIVES HIM THE RIGHT TO DO THAT?

  218. 218.

    polyorchnid octopunch

    December 5, 2010 at 9:30 pm

    @burnspbesq: Burns, that’s not the objective. Like she said, why don’t you go read the mission statement so you can find out what the objective is?

  219. 219.

    polyorchnid octopunch

    December 5, 2010 at 9:34 pm

    @Peter J: You win the thread!

  220. 220.

    Perry Como

    December 5, 2010 at 9:38 pm

    @burnspbesq: The answer to your question can be found in Room 641A.

  221. 221.

    burnspbesq

    December 5, 2010 at 9:38 pm

    @polyorchnid octopunch:

    I read the mission statement. If you’re taking the mission statement at face value, and ignoring the obvious implications, you’re willfully blind.

    For the last time: Wikileaks is a means to an end. Julian Assange is a non-state political actor, who thinks he knows what’s best for everyone. His objective is to make the modern nation-state impossible, and he doesn’t care fuck-all about what happens afterwards. I didn’t get to vote for him, and neither did anyone else, and that’s unacceptable. Fuck him, and all his naive apologists, and all the horses they rode in on.

  222. 222.

    bago

    December 5, 2010 at 9:39 pm

    @Roger Moore: You miss the point. It’s not that there should be no secrets. It’s that secrets should be expensive. If you make cost a million dOllars to classify a secret, you’ll spend that million dollars to classify nuclear activity for example, but not to classify the fact that quadaffi likes the ladies.

  223. 223.

    burnspbesq

    December 5, 2010 at 9:39 pm

    @Perry Como:

    You win. That’s really funny. I wonder how many other people got it.

  224. 224.

    Martin

    December 5, 2010 at 9:45 pm

    @burnspbesq:

    What doesn’t? He has no obligation to the US government. And the US government gave up their right to demand that this information stay secret when they allowed it to get out.

    He’s not even paying for this information, which at least would provide for some standard of culpability. All he’s doing it taking information already in the public sphere and putting it more in the public sphere.

    Bottom line, he can’t publish what he doesn’t have. And anything he has is no longer secret.

  225. 225.

    bago

    December 5, 2010 at 9:50 pm

    @burnspbesq: What gives him the right to repeat what other people have told him? If there was only an amendment for that…

  226. 226.

    burnspbesq

    December 5, 2010 at 9:58 pm

    @Martin:

    Wow. So many errors, so little time.

    Actually, he does have an obligation to the United States. He has an obligation not to violate our criminal laws. Which he almost certainly did.

    “Allowed” it to get out? Umm, excuse me, Bradley Manning STOLE it. You can say that the government should have tried harder to make it impossible for him to steal it, but that doesn’t change the fact that he stole it. You would be justly outraged if a rapist said “she asked for it.” This is no different.

    Whether anybody paid Manning is irrelevant to whether they are criminally culpable. The essence of conspiracy is the agreement. If Julian Assange promised Bradley Manning that he would provide an outlet for anything Manning could steal, and Manning acted in reliance on that promise, that’s conspiracy. If he gave him a thumb drive, that’s aiding and abetting the theft of government property. If they communicated by phone or email, that’s wire fraud.

    Already in the public sphere? I must have been busy the day that Bradley Manning, while in Federal custody, published everything he stole all by his ownself.

    You’re way too smart to not get this. What’s your agenda? Are you trying to get into matoko’s pants?

  227. 227.

    THE

    December 5, 2010 at 10:08 pm

    What if someone uses Wikileaks technology to publish everyone’s credit card numbers and social security numbers?

  228. 228.

    Perry Como

    December 5, 2010 at 10:11 pm

    burnspbesq, the NY Times, Le Monde, Der Spiegel and every other paper that is publishing the leaked documents are also guilty of the charges you list. Is it time to jail the editors and reporters of all of the newspapers around the world?

  229. 229.

    matoko_chan

    December 5, 2010 at 10:17 pm

    @burnspbesq:

    WHAT GIVES HIM THE RIGHT TO DO THAT?

    he doesnt need the “right”.
    he has the means.

  230. 230.

    polyorchnid octopunch

    December 5, 2010 at 10:24 pm

    @burnspbesq: So many errors. Since when does he have an obligation to obey your laws? Why, the last time he was in the US, which, as far as I can see, was a very long time ago, and long before he started wikileaks and long before anyone passed him anything from the State Department.

    What, you guys think You Are The World?

  231. 231.

    Bill Arnold

    December 5, 2010 at 10:27 pm

    @THE:

    What if someone uses Wikileaks technology to publish everyone’s credit card numbers and social security numbers?

    That would be someone with a different agenda than Assange. (If I read Assange correctly).
    There are doubtless people (“non-state political actors” tx burnspbesq) with an agenda that would compel them to disseminate such information if it were given to them.
    Same for launch codes/arming codes (or whatever they’re called for real) for nuclear weapons.
    Same for all the private emails between important members of the Republican party.

    In a lot of ways this (the Manning leak, if he’s responsible) is an anomaly though. The information was made way too accessible post 9/11 in the name of sharing within the U.S. government. Manning (or whoever) should not have had the ability to dump an entire secret db onto removable media. It wasn’t like he was encouraged and expected to do novel data mining experiments during lunch breaks. There could have been nearly the same degree of sharing without allowing such dumps, e.g. by throttling, disabling removable media writing, etc. This wasn’t like someone finding a hard drive with confidential contents, like sometimes occurs with corporate computers due to lax security procedures (or procedures not followed), e.g. wiping hard drives on disposal, whole-drive encryption for laptops with important information.

  232. 232.

    Bill Arnold

    December 5, 2010 at 10:51 pm

    @Martin:

    …if you have physical, non-root access to the computer the encryption takes place on.

    I am not willing to believe that wikileaks does not have uncompromised computers. I.e. it would need to be a ubiquitous (all computers sold affected) hardware attack, resilient against installation of obscure OS distributions, or physical compromise of specific computers.
    Of course, there is always doubt in play.
    (BTW, game out what exactly the governments would do if AES were unbreakable by them. They would IMO use other just as good or better cryptosystems, and one of the reasons besides security through obscurity would be to inject doubt into the world about the strength of AES.)

  233. 233.

    Delia

    December 5, 2010 at 10:51 pm

    @matoko_chan:

    he doesnt need the “right”.
    he has the means.

    Actually, Matoko is correct here. Assange has made himself a player at this particular time just as individuals always have, for good or ill or something in between. So you can argue about whether he’s an idiot or not (in his political views), but arguing about whether he has the “right” doesn’t seem to make much sense.

    And I’d be very surprised if Manning is the sole source of the leaks at the point. Wikileaks is going to be essentially a magnet for anyone who wants to dump info for any reason.

    What I’ve really been thinking about, being trained as a historian rather than an IT person, is that Marx was right about one thing after all. Every synthesis contains the seeds of its own destruction. I’ve been impressed with the vulnerability of computer systems to hackers for quite some time. It’s seemed to me that our entire system is extremely fragile. Especially when you read about some millions of consumers being exposed to identity theft by their bank or department store or whoever. You couple this with the need for the diplomacy, armed might, and money that every Great Power in the world has relied on since forever, you put it all online, and what’s going to happen?

    Simple: sooner or later, probably after said Great Power has passed its prime but before most of its own people are willing to acknowledge it yet, some annoying person like Julian Assange is going to come along and poke it at this vulnerable point. And that’s where we are now, trying to figure out what happens next.

  234. 234.

    Stillwater

    December 5, 2010 at 10:54 pm

    @THE: What if someone uses Wikileaks technology to publish everyone’s credit card numbers and social security numbers?

    You keep repeating these crazy hypotheticals. Is this really the best you can do?

  235. 235.

    Roy G

    December 5, 2010 at 10:58 pm

    WHAT GIVES HIM THE RIGHT TO DO THAT?

    The same thing that gave our imperial government overlords the right to start illegal wars under false pretenses, commit war crimes and torture in our name, shred the Constitution, spend us into a huge deficit, domestically spy on us, and permit Wall Street to rape our economy.

  236. 236.

    THE

    December 5, 2010 at 11:02 pm

    @Delia:

    That’s why I think the first casualty will be the World Wide Web.

    I think more and more nations will see that total information freedom is just too dangerous.

    Fracturing the unity of cyberspace is one way to resist system fragility.
    One giant perfectly-transparent web for all civilization is like all your eggs in one basket.

    Diversity and seperate ecosystems are much safer.

  237. 237.

    Perry Como

    December 5, 2010 at 11:03 pm

    @Delia:

    Simple: sooner or later, probably after said Great Power has passed its prime but before most of its own people are willing to acknowledge it yet, some annoying person like Julian Assange is going to come along and poke it at this vulnerable point. And that’s where we are now, trying to figure out what happens next.

    $5 and one command:

    wget -m -k -E -nH http://46.59.1.2/

    And another mirror of Wikileaks is up and running. Pandora’s Box is open and we are all along for the ride.

  238. 238.

    THE

    December 5, 2010 at 11:18 pm

    @Stillwater:

    yes

  239. 239.

    Roy G

    December 5, 2010 at 11:22 pm

    @THE

    The only casualty is the ‘walled garden’ of the web – by pushing Wikileaks off the DNS registry, the govt. has kept it away from the typical Facebook user. But then again, this type of person is always the easiest target, which is why they were targeted to begin with.

    Don’t worry about the Internet, though. It’s a robust system, capable of routing around dipshits like Lieberman and even the US govt.

    Teh Internet: it’s more than just a series of tubes, and it ain’t owned by the US govt. A fact they’ll find out more as things progress.

  240. 240.

    Stillwater

    December 5, 2010 at 11:40 pm

    @THE: Heh. Well, uh… OK.

  241. 241.

    THE

    December 5, 2010 at 11:55 pm

    @Roy G:

    Another reason for favoring a walled garden,
    is that if the walls match up with national boundaries,
    then you don’t have any jurisdiction issues – if you find you have to clean up a mess.

  242. 242.

    Roy G

    December 6, 2010 at 12:00 am

    @THE

    The walls exist only in our minds.

  243. 243.

    Corner Stone

    December 6, 2010 at 12:02 am

    Awesome thread. If that punk bitch burnspbesq could mau mau any further it would be turned into a Tina Brown column.

  244. 244.

    Perry Como

    December 6, 2010 at 12:06 am

    @THE: At least we would get to see what 21st century samizdat looks like.

  245. 245.

    THE

    December 6, 2010 at 12:07 am

    @Roy G:

    The walls exist only in our minds.

    In a sense all reality exists in our minds. The existence of the world is a theory.

  246. 246.

    Corner Stone

    December 6, 2010 at 12:08 am

    @Roger Moore:

    It’s also as a way of proving that you’re an idealist sticking up for your principles rather than an anarchist or vandal trying to throw a monkey wrench in the works for the fun of it.

    This is hilarious. You and Chuck Butcher have some James Dean 1950’s code for “manly” or some shit.
    This has nothing to do with some stupid fucking code of honor.

  247. 247.

    Roy G

    December 6, 2010 at 12:20 am

    @THE

    I don’t disagree. I’m not worried about testing alternative hypotheses.

  248. 248.

    THE

    December 6, 2010 at 12:29 am

    @Roy G:

    Me either.

  249. 249.

    roshan

    December 6, 2010 at 12:39 am

    It’s remarkable that eminent lawyer-crusaders of morality amidst us like burnsby and eemom who were asking what right does Assange have to release the leaks, have never spent a single minute asking what right does the US gov’t have to launch DDoS attacks against the Wikileaks website which resides on foreign domains. How did Lieberman get Amazon to backoff so quickly without even producing a scrap of legal paper which says that the leaks were illegal? Where is due process in all this stuff? When did anyone install Lieberman as the judge, jury and executioner for what gets published online?

  250. 250.

    THE

    December 6, 2010 at 12:45 am

    @Perry Como:

    Samizdat may arize but everyone is seeing the limits of globalization now – Economically too. Contagion carries from country to country.

    A system can be too tightly bound-up.
    It can be too large for safety.

    Too big to fail, to me, means it should be smaller.
    Because everything fails.

  251. 251.

    Peter

    December 6, 2010 at 12:59 am

    @matoko_chan: Oh my god. You have to be a parody. There is no way you are an actual person.

  252. 252.

    matoko_chan

    December 6, 2010 at 5:00 am

    @Peter: and you are a dumb fucking bedroom sniffing cudlip.
    why can’t you get it thru your thick cattle skull that i dont give a shit about whether you think it should be done….or if its amoral or im a bad person or watev the fuck you stupid cudlips think while ur milling around lowing that Assange is a baddie like the cowbosses want u to.
    there is a motherfucking system killer right out of a scifi novel RUNNING RIGHT FUCKING NAOW.
    and the “unipolar power” CANT TURN IT OFF.
    and it looks like its WAI.

  253. 253.

    matoko_chan

    December 6, 2010 at 5:42 am

    and now for something a lil more lighthearted

    RT @sarahpalinusa “I can see Julian Assange from my house” #wikileaks
    18 minutes ago via web

    Sarah Palin says Julian should be hunted down like Osama bin Laden–so he should be safe for at least a decade.
    about 7 hours ago via web

    The Queen of the Cudlips.

  254. 254.

    matoko_chan

    December 6, 2010 at 5:50 am

    its worrrrrrrking.

    US State department warns staff and students not to discuss Wikileaks as it could ‘endanger’ job prospects

  255. 255.

    Norman Rogers

    December 6, 2010 at 5:50 am

    So many experts on technology, so little time.

    Nothing you can buy off the shelf, or for whatever you’re paying for, is even remotely difficult to crack. There are no supercomputers whirring madly into the night in rack after rack after rack. The government simply buys the codes it needs, or steals them, and no one is the wiser.

    Remember that the next time you pour out your heart in a love poem to someone married to someone else.

  256. 256.

    Morat20

    December 6, 2010 at 8:33 am

    @WyldPirate: Once again, while that’s technically true, it’s not representative of the actual challenge of breaking something like that.

    Depending on the algorithm used (and AES was chosen as the replacement for DES for a reason), the actual searchable key space will be much smaller.

    Depending on what data you have besides the encrypted file — like what computer was used to encrypt it, or if you have suspected clear-text snippets from the file, you can break it a lot faster.

    Worst case for the NSA is searching half or less of those, and because of the mechanics of crypotography, those searches can be conducted in parallel.

    Key size is very important. So is specific algorithms. But attacking them isn’t as simple as a brute-force, “try-every-key” approach. Attacks are a lot better than that.

    Speaking for myself, if I wanted insurance I was pretty sure no one could read without the key, I’d start with, say, 4k Blowfish.

  257. 257.

    matoko_chan

    December 6, 2010 at 10:13 am

    @Morat20: amg cudlip theorycrafting is so FAIL.
    the feds know what Assange has, pretty much.
    Assange is just making a distributed server cloud of his insurance files.
    if the US keeps bugging him, HE RELEASES THE KRACKEN.

  258. 258.

    Peter

    December 6, 2010 at 11:10 am

    @matoko_chan: For fuck’s sake, I think I’d give you more credibility if you said you were a fucking Jedi. At least that’s recognized as a religion in certain parts of the world.

    Also the state department reacts to leaks of its internal memos by being unhappy with the leaks? HOOCOODANONE. Because Assange predicted the most predictable reaction of all time does not actually mean it’s working.

  259. 259.

    Morat20

    December 6, 2010 at 11:35 am

    @matoko_chan:

    Turing Fail.

  260. 260.

    matoko_chan

    December 6, 2010 at 1:23 pm

    @Morat20: insult FAIL. i <3 Alan Turing.

    @Peter: the slow release of the 250k diplo cables is part of Assanges field test.
    the content of the cables is meaningless.
    Assange is inducing a paranoid reaction in the american security state.
    His field test operates as an OODA loop killer.
    i get that u dont understand the design.
    Lack of substrate?

    you can call me a sufi if you prefer, it is approx the same thing.
    what i really am is a geek princess, like Julian Assange is geek royalty.

    One of the most frightening things about your true geek, for many people, is not that he’s socially inept – because everybody’s been there – but rather his complete lack of embarrassment about it.
    Neal Stephenson

    i simply dont care what you think.

  261. 261.

    THE

    December 6, 2010 at 2:13 pm

    See, I’d never want to be a Jedi. The suckers can’t marry.

    A Sith Lord now, I can understand.

  262. 262.

    Morat20

    December 6, 2010 at 2:13 pm

    I reitierate: Turing fail.

    Come back when you talk like a human, and not some poorly written, badly tuned heuristic spamming out bits of verbiage stolen from Vinge, Stross, and Stephenson.

  263. 263.

    matoko_chan

    December 6, 2010 at 2:44 pm

    @Morat20: you forgot Morgan, Gibson, and Dawkins.
    My all worgen guild is called The Tines.

    you cant shut me up anymore than the Keystone Kops of Amerikkka can shut down Julians system killer.
    /wicked grin

  264. 264.

    Peter

    December 6, 2010 at 4:11 pm

    Nobody’s trying to silence you, matoko. We’re just saying that you sound like an idiot robot whose sentences are constructed by opening up Snow Crash to a random page, pressing a finger on a random sentence, and rearranging it into gibberish.

    And for the record, I don’t believe for a second that you are actually apathetic to our reactions. I think your behavior indicates that you take a perverse pleasure in our dislike of you, or at least have convinced yourself that you do.

  265. 265.

    matoko_chan

    December 6, 2010 at 7:17 pm

    @Peter: i feed on it.
    your tears are delicious.

  266. 266.

    JimK

    December 6, 2010 at 8:50 pm

    Who should we be following, information wise?
    How did operation Payback work-out on “PayPal”?

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